


A Well-Bred Treaty

by GemNika



Category: Fairy Tail, Naruto
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Magic, Anxiety, Breeding with Demons, Comfort, Demon/Human Relationships, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Kiss, Handmaid's Tale Vibes, Loss of Virginity, Mard's Coffee Addiction, OoC Jackal (Fairy Tail), Past Violence, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Pregnancy, Random Naruto Characters, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Splashes of Cyberpunk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:15:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28505814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemNika/pseuds/GemNika
Summary: After the disappearance of magic, humanity is on the brink of destruction until demons led by Mard Geer Tartaros come to save them. It isn't altruistic. The demons need something from the humans: women to breed with to replenish their dwindling bloodlines. 60 years later, Lucy attends her first mating event and meets Mard Geer Tartaros. She knows exactly who he is, but will she have the fortitude to bear him a child?
Relationships: Dan Straight/Flare Corona, Jude Heartfilia/Layla Heartfilia, Levy McGarden/Gajeel Redfox, Lucy Heartfilia & Jackal, Lucy Heartfilia/Mard Geer Tartarus, Mard Geer Tartarus & Jackal, Natsu Dragneel/Lisanna Strauss
Comments: 46
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadSoullessQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadSoullessQueen/gifts).



> So _MadSoullessQueen_ just had to go and have another birthday, and I decided that she needed more of her favorite ship as a birthday present. This was going to be another chapter on _The Book of Zzz_ , but then I asked my husband what I should write and… his idea was too good not to run with it. Then, as I started plotting it out, it took a hard left turn into a whole new territory, and I figured, why not?!
> 
> This is definitely an AU. What kind, I’m not quite sure. Kinda Modern AU, kinda dystopian AU, with hints of Handmaid’s Tale and splashes of Cyperpunk, I guess? Either way, it’s a monster of a story because of how much fun I had with worldbuilding.
> 
> Mad, my love, you know what’s coming. I hope you all enjoy!

In the year X730, the world changed. This was well before Lucy was born, and she’d grown up only knowing what the current Earthland was like. She heard stories from her mother though, who had heard stories from her own mother, about society before the change. They were dark days, with humans struggling to survive. Magic had died out with no explanation - her own mother’s gate keys were nothing more than heirlooms - and then the monsters that mages held at bay with their magic converged on humanity.

Towns were burned by trolls. Whole cities were slaughtered by vulcans. The monarchy abandoned the people, holed up in their castle with the entirety of Fiore’s army guarding every wall and rampart against the hordes of foul monsters ravaging the people.

For five years, humans struggled to survive. In the year X735, the demons came. They massacred the king and his family, and all the knights. They tore through the remaining cities and towns, forcing the monsters back into their dens and moors. Slowly, humans crept from their homes to find the demons waiting for them. And what they’d believed was another form of torture, was their salvation.

The leader of the demons appeared on a projection in that sky that was visible all across the country, holding the head of the king in one hand. His name was Mard Geer Tartaros, and he told the humans that they could be saved. For a price. 

Mard Geer demanded a representative for each remaining human settlement meet with him in the former capital, Crocus. When a representative had been chosen - male or female, as this was a meeting to negotiate terms - the settlement needed only to raise a black flag from a building, and a demon would appear to escort the representative to Crocus safely. The humans were understandably wary. They’d spent five years hiding in fear of the monsters ravaging Fiore. Still, they raised their flags made of scraps of black and grey material, sheets painted with pitch, funeral dresses, anything they could find. The demons arrived at these humble settlements, greeted the humans gently, as though they were nothing more than frightened animals, and took them to Crocus to meet with the King of the Demons.

The terms were negotiated. It had been discovered that demons were struggling to keep their bloodlines afloat - not the lesser ones without humanoid forms, but the nobility of demonkind - and they’d learned that the bodies of human women were less hostile an environment for reproduction than demonesses. Twice a year, in the winter and summer, human women would volunteer to mate with a demon. If the pairing bore fruit, the demon would care for the human during pregnancy to ensure no foul play from jealous lovers or family. After the birth, the demon and human woman would have an opportunity to negotiate their own terms for producing more offspring; although there needed to be another demon present to offer advice to the human woman, so she wouldn’t unknowingly strike up a deal that was less beneficial for her.

The demons made it clear that this was to be voluntary. No woman’s family could force her to bear a demon’s child. Few options were afforded to the women of this time as it was, and the humans were surprised by how fervently demonesses had advocated for this mating treaty to be a _choice_ for the human; she couldn’t be forced to reproduce, and if it was discovered that she had been, the woman would be well within her rights under Mard Geer’s rule to seek compensation from the offending parties after a trial.

The terms were set in August of X735.

In July of X740, they were renegotiated to set minimum age limits on the human women. No woman under the age of 21 could participate in the mating event. This came after years of young women, some teenagers and some barely entering into womanhood, trying to complete the task of mating with a demon and carrying their offspring, only to suffer from complications during the pregnancy. Their less mature bodies couldn’t withstand the strain. More stringent consequences were set for those who had forced these younger women to make the attempt. Mard Geer Tartaros signed the death penalty certificate on fifty humans for underage mating coercion.

In January of X750, the demons brought technological improvements to humanity. It started in Crocus, where Mard Geer Tartaros had taken over the castle, then slowly branched out across Fiore over the next ten years. Old shabby wooden buildings and cottages with thatched roofs were torn down and replaced with towering structures of steel and glass. Lamp oil and candles were replaced with harnessed electricity in light bulbs, neon lighting and more. The magical SE vehicles that had been sitting in mangled heaps on the sides of roads and behind run-down motels were melted down. Ice boxes became refrigerators, wood-burning stoves used for cooking and heating a meager hovel became full-range ovens and furnaces used to heat whole buildings in the winter months. Cobblestone roads and dirt paths were dug up and paved over with concrete, and eventually highways were constructed to connect all the major cities. 

Fifteen years after the Treaty was signed, there were stirrings of unrest in the human communities, where small groups grumbled over the shift in the population. They believed that the demons were planning on wiping out humanity slowly, over several centuries. These humans believed that eventually, everyone would be at least partially demonic, and that it was the goal of the demons.

By the year X760, demons had integrated into Fiore’s society. They created institutions of higher learning that had been neglected when there was magic running rampant in the country. More humans became doctors, advancing medicine hundreds of years under the tutelage of centuries-old demons. Many humans became lawyers, studying demonic models of argumentation and contracts.

In X763, news articles began circulating about the high mortality rates of half-breed demons, with speculation over their deaths not being natural causes, but neglect. It appeared that coupled demon pairs weren’t always on the same page when it came to the males breeding with human women; the males participated in mating events and brought the impregnated human women to their home without their demoness partner’s knowledge, which left the demoness in an underrepresented and marginalized position.

By X770, technology had advanced far enough that computers were present in every home. In the lighting, the heating, even opening and closing doors. Many Fioreans had maintained what shreds of their culture they could remember from the time before, even taking opportunities to teach their local demons about these customs. During this time, it was discovered that different classes of demons matched better with different women based on the human’s genetic code. Research was conducted to finely tune this matching process, raising the success rate of a pairing by 78%. 

In X780, another boom in technology occurred. The humans discovered that demons - who live for centuries or even millennia, depending on the strength of their bloodline - were well past what the humans had created. They worked together to continue improving this technology, making devices smaller and smaller still until they were able to implant a single device in a human’s forearm that could pull up holographic images.

In X782, humans marched against the unfair treatment and underrepresentation of female demons in the Mating Treaty of X735; human women, who had never forgotten the role demonesses played in creating equality in the original treaty for them, bellowed that their sisters-of-another-race should be afforded the same rights as the male demons. Mard Geer Tartaros passed a law that included female demons in response. The male counterpart of a coupled demon pair had previously been able to participate in the mating event without the female’s permission; now, the female demon of a coupled pair needed to sign a release waiver, both allowing her partner to participate and agreeing to raise any child or children born from a union with a human woman. Furthermore, clear stipulations were set to create separate sanctioned events for female demons - either partnered with a male or not - to mate with human males; this was both for the safety of human males, as demonesses could be more brutal if left unchecked, and to create a more balanced sense of equality.

By the year X783, the mortality rate of half-breed demons had decreased. Demon-human hybrid families became more common, as they learned to restructure their lives around the highest success rate of pregnancy. Of course, there were demons and humans alike who refused to participate in what was derisively called “cross-contamination,” but the importance of the Treaty was ingrained in history.

In X785, the demons renegotiated the Mating Treaty with the humans, adding addendums that took technology into account. Women could use software to search for a demonic partner. The large gatherings that had occurred in the past five decades - with hundreds of human women gathering in a town square and being chosen by a demon who then took them to a more private venue - were more streamlined. Demons no longer needed to wait until the winter or summer months, and could match with a human woman instantly online. These two larger mating events would still take place, but in more secluded venues to give the human women more privacy; this was added as a result of protests against the very public nature of the events in the past that caused some women who volunteered to become pariahs to their human companions.

In X792, the beasts attempted a coup in Crocus, decimating one of the outer protective walls before the demons nearby - both full and half-blooded - quelled the sudden uprising. This quieted the rumors that demonic society was trying to wipe out humanity for a time, acting as a reminder that the demons hadn’t forgotten their side of the agreement from X735.

Humanity thrived under the rule of demons, eventually learning that even the lower class demons - those who were less humanoid in appearance and therefore weren’t part of the demonic noble class - were nothing like the horror stories they’d been told while magic and the monarch reigned in Fiore. The two races coexisted in peace, with demons protecting humans from the beasts in Earthland, and humans helping to replenish demonic bloodlines.

* * *

**_Our story begins in X794…_ **

* * *

History was, by far, one of Lucy’s favorite subjects when she’d been in school. She’d studied everything she could get her hands on concerning the world before the Treaty. She knew, of course, that her parents had pushed her to learn more about history so that she would come to their way of thinking regarding the Treaty before she reached adulthood.

Layla and Jude wanted their only daughter to have no part whatsoever in the mating events. It didn’t matter to them that it was a demon herbalist who’d been the one to cure Layla’s illness - a rare condition that was once called Ethernano Deficiency, and was later discovered to be a parasite that infected the now-empty magical containers of humans who would have been mages - and saved her life; she was the first case since magic had disappeared, and the first person without magic to have contracted the parasite. No one was sure how she’d contracted it, but Lucy had a feeling it had something to do with the golden gate keys she touched all the time.

And even though Jude constantly did business with demonic nobility, being a successful businessman himself and part of the upper echelon of society among humans and demons alike, he was still against Lucy participating in the mating events. According to both her parents, she should find a husband (or wife, Layla added quietly) who was human, to continue the Heartfilia line. Even when Lucy tried to say that the Heartfilia line _would_ continue if she had a demon’s child, they didn’t listen.

Still, she was an adult. It was her 21st birthday, and the summer mating event just so happened to be taking place later that day. She’d been signed up for years on the list, renewing her registration every year and confirming that _yes_ , she knew she wasn’t old enough to participate yet and was registering to show her interest in the program when she was of age; and _yes_ , she understood the terms and conditions of submitting a registration early (memorizing the Treaty and its addendums was part of sex education in high school for those who chose it as an elective, after all, and Lucy had happily taken the elective); and _yes_ , she knew that she could choose to cancel her registration by the day before her 21st birthday to remove her name from the X794 list for Crocus; and _yes_ , she understood that a successful impregnation could mean moving into a demon’s home for the duration of the pregnancy and up to one year after a live birth to feed the infant(s) and receive proper post-partum care (or six months after a miscarriage, during which time she would receive grief counseling); and _yes_ , she knew that there was no guarantee that a demon would continue a relationship with her after the first year of the infant’s life.

All of that was moot by this point. She was of age, and wanted to volunteer to participate in the mating event, because she appreciated what the demons had done for her people. Without their appearance, there was no guarantee that Lucy would have even been born in the first place. And by participating in the event, she would be paired (if chosen) with a noble demon; she could have gone online and found a demon that way like Levy had when she was 18. Granted, Levy had found Gajeel, a half-demon himself, and they were so unbelievably in love with two adorable twins to show for it. But Lucy had plans for her life. She was going to participate in the event and bear a child, then start college, majoring in history with a minor in demonology.

The tech tattoo on her right hand - a bright pink tribal bird that she’d chosen on her 16th birthday - warmed up two degrees to let her know that it was time to leave. She looked down and tapped the tattoo once to turn off the reminder, then another time to pull up a holographic map that would show her the fastest route from her parents’ house to the venue. A fifteen minute walk, or five minute drive. There wouldn’t be any parking available, and she wasn’t going to pay for a taxi to drop her off. That would mean someone finding out where she was going, and she didn’t like the attention it drew.

Even though these mating events had been going on for nearly 60 years, and they had become more private to protect the identities of women who volunteered, there was no telling if someone supported the mating events. It was better to not spread the information around. This was her business, and no one else’s.

Lucy checked her reflection one last time, giving herself a once over to make sure her simple makeup filter was properly applied around her eyes and there were no unruly blemishes that she needed to remove before leaving. There weren’t necessarily strict dress codes for the events, but she was expected to dress modestly. There was no need to flaunt her body when the demon who chose her would be the one seeing her naked for the night. Still, she needed to be presentable, so she’d chosen a pair of black slacks with a navy blue silk blouse and matching navy suede heels that she could walk in comfortably.

There was no need for her to grab a purse to hold money or her identification, since it was all available in the implant in her hand, so Lucy turned from her mirror and left her bedroom, scanning her hand over the motion reader once in the hallway to lock the door. Layla had a bad habit of snooping, it seemed, so Lucy had to beg Gajeel’s brother Rogue to install a biometric lock for her.

With a soft sigh, she walked down the hall, past her parents’ bedrooms and the guest bathroom, then into the living area. “I’m heading out,” she said, forcing a smile when they looked up from their tablets to stare at her, with Jude sitting normally on the couch and Layla laying down beside him with her head resting on his thigh.

Layla was the first to react, her thin blonde brows pinching together when she glanced at the clock always lit up on her wrist. “Dinner’s in twenty minutes,” she said. “I was making your favorite.”

She sighed again, her shoulders dropping in defeat. They’d had this discussion five times in the past week alone. “I’m going to the mating event,” Lucy said.

Jude was the next to speak, a deep frown turning his moustache downward. “You’ll ruin yourself for the man you plan to marry,” he said.

“Or woman,” Layla added. It was no secret to Lucy that her mother was wholly supportive of Lucy expressing her own sexual identity, she just preferred if the one Lucy expressed it with was at least half-human. Her mother was mildly progressive in that respect. Levy’s parents had been quite the opposite, demanding she only see human men. They’d gotten quite the shock when she’d brought Gajeel home to tell them the half-demon had impregnated her.

“Regardless,” Jude said, rolling his eyes. Lucy appreciated that he at least made an effort to tolerate Layla’s progressiveness. “Sleeping with a demon at one of these mating events isn’t a pleasant experience, Lucy. You could get seriously hurt.”

She stared at her parents, and was tempted to keep her mouth shut, as she had for the past several years every time they’d tried to dissuade her. Except this time, she was actually about to leave and attend her first event. And she was excited for this! She’d waited so long! “How the hell would you know?” she finally asked.

“Excuse me?” Layla gasped.

“How would you know?” Lucy asked again, crossing her arms under her chest. “Have you ever _been_ to one, Mom?”

“No,” Layla said slowly. “I never wanted to do it. You know I met your father--”

“And you, Dad?” Lucy asked, rounding on him. “I know they only made the demoness events a thing 9 years ago, but--”

“No.”

“Then how do you know I could get hurt?”

“It’s no secret,” Jude said. “Demons are not gentle during sex. And what if you find yourself matched up with one who drops that human façade partway through, and he’s hung like an incubus?”

She wasn’t going to get into an anatomy lesson with her father right then. Only noble demons attended the mating events. Half-demons and lower-class demons made their own matches with humans online those days. Still… “Nobles don’t suddenly _change_ the way they look. They look like us. That’s how they’re born,” she huffed. “And an incubus can’t attend the mating event anyway _because_ they’re not compatible with humans.”

“I still don’t understand why you’d want to go,” Layla said. She set down her tablet and stood from the couch, pulling her plush robe tighter against her as though she could feel chilly fingers trying to touch her body. “Lucy, you’re a beautiful girl.”

“Woman,” she corrected.

Layla paused, blinked, then nodded. “A beautiful woman,” she said, smiling tenderly as she closed the distance between them and grabbed Lucy’s hands. Her thumb brushed across the tech tattoo. “This isn’t some fairy tale like those books you read.”

“I never said it was,” Lucy said, scowling as she pulled her hands back to herself. “I know exactly what I’m getting myself into. I’ve read plenty of verified firsthand accounts from women who’ve gone to the events, even naming the males they’ve been with. You know just as well as I do that there are protections in place for the humans there.”

“So they say,” Jude muttered.

“Don’t start on that conspiracy stuff again,” Lucy groaned, dropping her head back in frustration. “I swear, you believe everything you read online.”

“As do you,” Jude scoffed. “Just because some woman writes this online, doesn’t mean it’s true. And how do you know the story isn’t written by someone trying to make it seem like a good thing?”

“They’re _verified_ ,” she said, throwing her hands out to the sides. “Look it up, Dad. I’m not wasting time on this. You both knew I was going, and this is my choice. I made the decision years ago, and I’ve had plenty of time to _grow up_ and decide whether this is something I really want to do. And I do. So, whether you agree with me or not, I’m going to the mating event. And I’m going to fuck a demon and have his baby, because we _owe them for saving all of us from extinction_ , in case you happen to have forgotten!”

Layla gasped, and Jude’s face turned a bright cherry red, but Lucy turned on her heel and stormed out of the flat, wishing with everything she had that the door wasn’t motion activated so she could grab it and slam the thing closed.

“If you go through with this, you can find somewhere else to live!” Jude bellowed as he rushed out into the hallway.

Lucy continued walking toward the elevator that would lead her down from their penthouse suite to the first floor, extending a hand behind her with her middle finger raised at her father. She’d made her choice, and damnit, she wasn’t going to let anyone tell her that it was the wrong one.

* * *

The fifteen minute walk had definitely helped to clear Lucy’s head. By the time she rounded the corner leading to the mating event’s summer location - a high-rise hotel on West Camarilla Avenue that held the most wonderful masquerade balls every year - Lucy could feel the excitement bubbling up inside of her. This was really going to happen.

After years of waiting, of mentally and physically preparing herself for this day, she was going to be part of the mating event like thousands of other women before her in the past six decades. She’d read everything she could get her hands on regarding the event. She’d taken her elective classes in school seriously to make sure she learned everything the teachers were willing to tell her about. Forums and search after search had given her plenty of information.

Tips on how to perform well. The after-effects of an ovulation injection they’d give her if she wasn’t already ovulating - Lucy still wasn’t entirely sure how to tell, if she was being honest. She made sure never to start using birth control, on the off chance it lowered her fertility rate. She’d never had sex either, because she hadn’t wanted to encourage her parents delusions over her not being part of the event when she was finally of age.

Lucy had practiced yoga to keep her flexibility up, and did kegel exercises every day. She was a virgin only in the sense of never having had sex, but after reading about how the first time could be painful and how important a female orgasm was for a higher chance of a successful impregnation… Lucy had immediately researched masturbation. And then practiced. It was important for her to understand her own body, to be comfortable with expressing her sexual desire.

She didn’t take this lightly. If nothing else, she felt as though it was a calling, to provide a demon with offspring they couldn’t have otherwise. And she’d figured, after fulfilling what she felt was her duty, she could attend college and get the rest of her life started.

As walked down the street, her lips turned down slightly at the sight of people clamoring outside in what appeared to be a protest.

Oh, not this again.

Lucy paused in the darkened space between the bright blue glowing sign of a smoke shop and the red hot sign of a small eatery, tapping her tech tattoo twice to adjust her makeup. She didn’t have a mirror, but there were a few different looks she’d downloaded and tried out that she figured she could use on a whim. She scrolled through the makeup applications, then smirked when she reached the heaviest setting with dark smokey eyeshadow, heavy black eyeliner, and blood red lipstick. She clicked on it, waiting for the tingling sensation on her eyes and lips to disappear, then checked her reflection in the eatery’s window. She hardly recognized herself, which was a plus.

With her new look situated, she continued on her way, carefully slipping between people in the crowd surrounding the hotel doors.

“We were made pure!” someone shouted.

“Don’t defile your body!” another bellowed as Lucy’s head lowered to make sure her hair shadowed her face. Someone must have leaked the location for the mating event for so many people to have come out to protest against it.

She approached the heavy wooden doors, holding her right hand out for the scanner to check her registration. After a moment, she was granted entry. The door swung open to reveal a large, sharklike demon with gills on his cheeks and short navy hair staring down at her.

Lucy smiled up at him.

“No makeup inside,” he said, his voice thickly accented. She could tell that he usually spoke in one of the southern demonic languages, but had switched to the common tongue to speak with her. She appreciated it, since her translation skills were still lacking.

“I understand,” she said softly. She knew about that already. That the human women were expected to wear minimal makeup, preferably none, during the event. Once the door closed behind her, Lucy tapped her hand and removed her makeup entirely. It was pointless to try reapplying the lighter filter she’d had on before. Her profile picture was taken without makeup on, so it was more of a habit to have something covering her face, even if only just.

The shark-demon held a blue-tinted hand out for her, and she hesitated for a moment before placing her hand in his. Lucy didn’t watch him bring another scanner to her hand to verify her information, instead looking around at the golden accent on electric braziers along the walls, the early X600 art that had been salvaged and reconstructed from the castle in Crocus. There were dozens of paintings twice as tall as her, showing mages fighting monsters, expansive landscapes, elegant portraits of nobles.

“Name?”

“Lucy Heartfilia,” she said automatically, looking from the walls over toward the concierge kiosk with its vibrant yellow lettering. Interesting. That was written an abyssal, and not the common language.

“Status?”

“First,” she said to confirm that this was her first mating event.

“Children?”

“Virgin,” she said. It would let him know that she both had no children, and had never miscarried.

“Class?”

Her lips pursed and she turned back to look at him. “That’s actually something I didn’t understand,” she said. “Mine says Class A-plus, but…”

He chuckled a soft, consoling sort of laugh. “After we verify your credentials, your data will be sent to any demons present who are Class A or higher.”

“And they go up to…”

“Class S,” he said. She blinked, staring at him. She could only assume that Class S were the purest and strongest bloodlines. “Only halfies are able to mate with strictly Class S, Miss Heartfilia. Human women like yourself don’t normally present with just Class S.”

“Has it ever happened before?” she asked.

“I heard about one,” he said, his barely-there lips twitching downward to bare two rows of pointed teeth. “No clue what happened to her. Or if it was just rumors.”

Lucy nodded, looking down at the code scrolling in a translucent screen above her hand. “So I guess that means Class S demons are more likely to choose a half-demon to mate with?” she asked. “Because then there’s more demonic blood in the offspring?”

“Depends on the demon,” he said. “Good, you got your medical exams in here.” Then he paused and met her gaze. “And happy birthday.”

Lucy couldn’t stop herself from blushing over that. “Thanks,” she whispered. It was just one more reminder that demons had made a point of trying to learn more about human culture. They didn’t celebrate birthdays because of how long they lived. In her experience in befriending a couple demons - like Gray and Natsu and Erza - Lucy had learned that they tended to forget how old they actually were after a certain amount of time passed. But her three demonic friends made a point of setting reminders in their calendars to wish her and their human friends a happy birthday, because it was one of her people’s customs.

“Alright,” he said, pulling the scanner away from her hand. “You’re all set, and your data’s been sent upstairs for review.” Lucy nodded. That meant there were demons assessing her information, deciding whether they wanted to fuck her and make a baby. Was it normal for her to start feeling a little nervous? The shark-demon reached around her, pointing toward a grand ballroom to the left of the concierge kiosk. “Just through there, you’ll find the other women. There are areas set up based on Class. You’ll want to mingle with the women in Class A.”

“Oh?”

“Best to get to know them your first time here,” he chuckled. “If it doesn’t take this year, and you come back, you’ll meet up with the same women again, most likely.”

That made sense, she supposed. These were like-minded women, in a sense. They were all at least willing to come to the mating event. And if there were more experienced women here, then maybe Lucy could get some pointers from them. Maybe even settle her nerves a little bit.

“Dinner is a buffet, so please help yourself.”

“I read that they serve a lot of foods that are aphrodisiacs,” she mumbled. “Is that true?”

“Some,” he said. “There’s regular food too. We prefer you women to be comfortable and satisfied. Helps calm the nerves.” Lucy jolted and stared at him again, his beady eyes and his too-wide grin. He laughed good-naturedly and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Firsties are always nervous. Virgins moreso. You’ll be fine.”

Lucy nodded and took a slow, soothing breath.

“If you need anything, you ask for me,” he said. “Kisame.”

“Kisame,” she said slowly, smiling up at him again. “Thank you.” With that, she walked to the ballroom where she could hear the first stirrings of a string quartet and the voices of hundreds of women talking, laughing. Having what she hoped was a grand time.

She bit her lips and took one more breath, then stepped into the ballroom, looking around in the hopes of finding where the Class A section was at.

* * *

Mard Geer sat in his suite, staring at the projected images of the seventeen women who were at the mating event capable of mating with a Class S demon like himself. He’d been to more than a hundred of these mating events and had yet to find a woman - human, demon, or half-breed - who could carry his offspring.

In all honesty, it was starting to wear on him. He’d been in touch with doctors to ensure that his seed was virile, that he _could_ impregnate a woman. He’d been assured, at great length, that the lack of offspring had nothing to do with him.

He had to try again. He refused to leave his throne without an heir when he eventually decided to step down. Probably not for another millennia, but that was neither here nor there. He had to be sure his line survived. 

First, he sorted them by their breeding. There were two half-breed demons he had seen before. He’d bedded them both in previous years. They were out of the question. If a pairing bore no fruit, there was no point in trying again. That was why the system had been designed this way. It gave the optimal ratio of copulation to almost guarantee success. With a soft sigh, he closed out the half-breed files. Another demon could take them. He wasn’t interested.

He did, however, prefer that he was afforded the first pick, considering his station. There were enough women present that each male could have three, if they so chose. Of course, that wasn’t how things were done. It was one woman, and only one woman, who could be bedded by a male. It increased the likelihood of success. This whole Treaty hinged on the salvation of dying demonic bloodlines.

But he couldn’t think about that. He only had so much time to make a decision. He didn’t like being rushed into this. He preferred the old way of meeting the women in person and feeling out who they were, if they had desirable traits that he would want in his offspring. This cold, calculated analysis of files, while efficient, was too cold, even for him. He needed to know the woman, in some capacity. Even if it was just hearing her voice and talking about the weather for a few minutes.

He needed more than data and numbers to decide who he would try to impregnate.

Still, Mard Geer knew that he needed to narrow it down. Talking with all fifteen women would be quite the undertaking.

He sorted them by pregnancies, adjusting the parameters slightly to view them from most to least. If nothing else, he could remove the women with no past successful pregnancies. At least the women who’d borne other demonlings were _capable_. 

Three women had birthed five children already. Far too many, as far as he was concerned. He removed them. And the two women who’d had four children already.

Four women had birthed two or three. An acceptable number. He verified their medical documentation, then sighed and removed all four when he found that their blood type was A-negative. He’d learned that women with A-negative blood were the poorest candidates for him. If they did conceive, they would miscarry within the first two months; though he’d never successfully impregnated a woman, he’d been told by Lamy and Porlyusica that was the case. He was inclined to believe his top two medical professionals.

That left him with six women. Two hadn’t born any children, and he very nearly crossed them off the list as well. Flare Corona, a fiery red-head with a demure smile had miscarried twice - once in the first trimester, and once a still-birth at eight months. She was fertile, and it could very well have been poor genetics on the male’s part that led to the losses.

Mard Geer looked at the other woman, a young blonde named Lucy Heartfilia. The name alone had him pausing. He knew that name. Jude, the monorail tycoon who spearheaded a lightning fast transportation system that had surprised even Mard Geer. What was someone like her doing here?

He looked closer at her file. “A virgin?” he breathed, his onyx eyes widening. That would explain why she’d had no children. This was her first event.

He memorized the six potential candidates’ files, marked that he would meet with them first - as all males at the two major mating events always did in Crocus - then sent the data back downstairs. He’d made preliminary choices, and would be able to meet these six women and make his decision final. Mard Geer had never forgone choosing a woman during a mating event, and this year would be no exception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The worldbuilding was so much fun in this, that it ended up taking up quite a bit of space.
> 
> Credit where it’s due: _MadSoullessQueen_ was gracious enough to let me pick her brain, and the concept for low demon breeding rates was too good to pass up for this story, among some of her other demon-lore headcanons... and some of her Mard Geer headcanons. Also, helping me tweak the use of technology in this to give it more of that cyberpunk feel. It’s not quite in my wheelhouse, since I’m more of a fantasy writer, but I wanted to try something new for her birthday.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed, and I’ll see you next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

It took a few minutes for Lucy to figure out where the Class A section was at. She hadn’t realized that the women would wear color-coordinated outfits. Or that, apparently, Class A wore red. That was just a little embarrassing. Because when she’d asked a random woman where she needed to go, Lucy had been directed to a group wearing blue, but they’d been Class C. She hadn’t realized that there were Class C demons who were nobles. Or that the classes went all the way to E, wearing shades of yellows and golds.

Thankfully, a woman named Jenny had been kind enough to let Lucy know that Class A usually wore red, and they were over in the front center of the room, right next to Class S in silver. Even though Lucy’s face had been a bright cherry red - well, she’d fit in with the color scheme, wouldn’t she? - Jenny had smiled and said it was always like that the first time around, and at least Lucy hadn’t made the mistake she’d made in wearing a revealing silver and black halter dress and high stiletto heels that had her feet aching for days. It was apparently more acceptable of a faux pas to dress in a color below your class, than to dress in a color above your class. Lucy wasn’t sure if she was supposed to ask whether she could technically dress in silver since she _could_ procreate with a Class S demon.

By the time she reached the Class A section, she wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed she was the only one who hadn’t gotten the memo about the color to wear. Still, she found an open seat at the large round table holding all the Class A women, and stopped next to it, looking at the beautiful red-haired woman sitting there toying with a rice ball.

“Excuse me,” Lucy said softly, drawing the woman’s attention. She nearly gasped at how vibrant a red the nearly vacant eyes were that turned toward her. “Is it okay if I sit here?”

The woman smiled, an almost creepy turn pulling at the corners of her lips. “Sure thing, Blondie.” Her head tilted slightly and her long hair slid across her bare shoulder to reveal a crimson tattoo sitting plainly on her mostly exposed breast. “Name’s Flare.”

“Lucy,” she said, smiling and taking a seat.

“Firsty?”

She nodded, bashfully tucking a few stray hairs behind her ear. “Is it that obvious?”

“To me,” Flare chuckled. She broke her rice ball in two and held it out for Lucy while biting into the other half. She wasn’t really sure what to make of the woman at her side, but Lucy still accepted the other half of Flare’s rice ball and took a small bite. Kisame had said it would be good to get to know the other Class A women. When Flare leaned back in her seat, Lucy found herself watching the way the rich fabric of her crimson dress seemed to drip over her like liquid. She oozed sensuality, something that Lucy definitely didn’t do, even while trying to be sexy. And here she’d thought that she was comfortable in her own skin. While sitting next to a woman like Flare, Lucy could see that she was anything but. “I’ve got a filter I can share with you,” Flare said after swallowing her food. “It’ll change your shirt color.”

“Oh,” Lucy said, drawing back in surprise. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Do you already have one?”

Lucy shook her head, watching as Flare cleaned her fingers on a napkin, then reached down to pull her skirt away from her leg to reveal a slit in the fabric up to her hip and a black garter on her thigh. She unclipped it, pinching one end between her thumb and forefinger, and Lucy took the other end.

“I’ll give you the premium one, so you can change the shade too,” Flare said, smiling that wispy thin smile over at the blonde beside her. She tapped what Lucy realized was her tech tattoo on her right breast.

“How much--”

Flare grinned then. “Free of charge, Blondie,” she giggled while scrolling through what Lucy could only assume were her clothing filters. It was something she’d never thought to spend money on - a quick filter that could be applied to her clothing in much the same way she did her makeup, to change the color without buying a new outfit - but she was definitely seeing the allure in that moment. Flare finally selected the filter and after a moment, Lucy felt her fingers tingling while it was transferred to her own tech tattoo. “It’s only red, but it’ll work on everything.”

“That’s amazing,” Lucy said. Once the transfer was complete, she handed the black garter back to Flare and opened the filter. It was actually pretty damn advanced, giving her options to change both the shade and richness of the color applied to her clothing, and also letting her choose which articles of clothing she wanted to change. She wasn’t much for wearing red though.

“I know, it’s a lot,” Flare laughed again. “I spent three hours straight messing with it.” She gently touched Lucy’s hand and met her curious honey gaze. “Can I?”

Lucy nodded quickly. Maybe a little too quickly based on the reassuring smile that was sent her way. She watched as Flare leaned back slightly to look at her - her face, her figure, her hair, and closer to observe her eyes and the natural color of her lips - then focused on Lucy’s tech tattoo to adjust the color. Something strange in the corner of her eye drew Lucy’s attention, and she found someone mildly familiar sitting in a simple silver dress at the other end of the Class A table. When she glanced over, the Class S table was empty.

Mira Jane Strauss, the half-demon older sister to Natsu’s half-demon girlfriend, Lisanna.

“Oh my god,” Lucy breathed. “Is that…”

Flare glanced over then snorted and nodded. “Mira,” she said. “Class S. She brings the other Class S girls over every time because there’s a few Class A girls who should technically be up there, too.”

Girls like Lucy?

“Weird, if you ask me,” Flare said, looking back at Lucy’s hand. “Half-demons getting with the Class S makes sense, but humans? I mean, I technically can, but…”

Lucy jolted and looked at the demure smile on Flare’s lips. “You, too?”

Flare paused in finalizing the adjustments to Lucy’s new filter, then kept going. “Yeah, I guess you’re like me then. But I don’t want a Class S demon.”

“How come?” Lucy asked. “I-I mean, if that’s not too personal.”

Flare snorted and tapped the button to change Lucy’s clothing. Her shirt and shoes and, based on the quick ripple she felt between her legs and across her breasts, her lingerie as well. “I’ve got a demon in mind, and he’s Class A. Unfortunately, he’s only interested in being with the mother of his baby.”

“O-Oh…” Lucy wanted to see what her clothes looked like, but she didn’t want to be rude. Flare seemed pretty emotionally invested in this Class A demon, and her clothing wasn’t nearly as important as the woman sitting beside her - who’d taken Lucy under her wing, in a sense, to show her the ropes at her first event.

Flare blinked slowly, her smile growing more distant. “We were successful twice already,” she said softly. “But I lost the babies both times.”

Without a thought, Lucy placed a hand on Flare’s, gently squeezing. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s a part of life,” she said. “But, he said he doesn’t want anyone else, and he’s happy to choose me every time until we’re successful.”

She wanted so badly to ask Flare why they didn’t just meet up when it wasn’t time for the event to try again, but she knew the answer. Or, maybe just one of the answers. Flare needed to grieve after the loss of a pregnancy, and the mating events were set up in a way so that a woman could grieve and still be able to attend the next event if she was ready.

Flare was about to continue speaking, then a soft dinging sound rang through invisible speakers in the room. “Oh, it’s starting,” she said. She pushed her seat back and stood, with Lucy following suit - and suddenly realizing that the only thing she’d eaten was half a rice ball. “Crocus is one of the only places left that has the demons come down to meet with matches,” she said. Flare grabbed Lucy’s hand and led her over to where the other Class A women had congregated.

Once they were together, Lucy jumped when she felt an urgent notification in her hand. She opened it, and her jaw dropped when she saw that it was a list of names, only a few of which she recognized. All male demons. Who had chosen to meet with her. Whatever criteria they’d used to narrow down their choices, she’d made the cut.

“Can I see your list?” Flare asked, nibbling her lip to hide a suddenly manic smile.

“Sure--”

“Flare, you know better,” Mira Jane laughed, coming closer to wrap an arm around Lucy’s, effectively closing her tattoo’s holographic screen and keeping Flare from seeing it. “Don’t mind her,” she said to Lucy, then paused.

“Hey, Mira,” Lucy laughed.

“Y-You know each other?”

Mira laughed and squeezed Lucy’s arm while looking around her to smile at Flare. Thankfully, it wasn’t the one that usually gave Lucy chills. “Lucy here’s the one who finally got my little sister into a real relationship with her childhood sweetheart.”

“And you spent three years trying to convince me to take your brother’s virginity,” Lucy snickered.

Flare blanched. “Y-You mean… Elfman?” she asked.

Mira’s laugh was light and feathery. “I know, I know. But they’d be so cute together. And he really is a sweetheart, even though he’s so…”

“Huge?” Flare breathed.

“Monstrously ginormous?” Lucy laughed.

“I was gonna say tall, but yeah.” They laughed and talked with one another for a couple minutes, and Lucy noticed that eventually, Flare relaxed. She wasn’t entirely sure why Flare had been worked up before, or why Mira felt the need to intervene, but it all worked out in the end, she supposed.

The lights in the room dimmed once, twice, then bathed the ballroom in half-darkness while a recording of Mard Geer Tartaros appeared in a projection at the center of the room. Even though it was just a recording, Lucy still felt herself shiver at the way his onyx eyes seemed to peer right into her soul.

_“Welcome to the Crocus Summer Mating Event. On behalf of the demons in attendance tonight, I would like to thank you for volunteering. I hope you have enjoyed the food and festivities thus far this evening.”_

Well, Lucy hadn’t really had a chance to enjoy the food, but that was alright. She’d make sure to come to the next event earlier so she could get the full experience.

_“I see we have several new faces in the crowd. For those who are unfamiliar with the Crocus event, the night will proceed as follows. We have received and reviewed your files, and made our preliminary decisions. For the next hour, we will meet with you and finalize our choices. In the event you did not receive a notification, do not fret. There are times where we, as men, do not know what we truly desire until we see you in person. Or hear your voice. Remember, there are demons who base most of their lives on their sense of smell. There is still time for you to be selected. And if you are not chosen this time, we encourage you to return for the next event.”_

That was going to be embarrassing, for sure. Lucy had at least gotten a notification that she’d passed the first round of selections, but there was still a chance that none of the demons would choose her. She could have come to this for nothing.

_“Once the decisions are finalized, you will receive a notification with the room number in the hotel for you to go to. Of course, you may also be escorted by the demon who chooses you. However, your safety is our top priority, so in the event you feel unsafe at any point during the night, you need only to say the safeword you chose during your registration.”_

Lucy had thought that was a bit strange when she’d had to choose a safeword. Granted, she’d looked it up online before choosing one - she hadn’t really understood the importance before doing some light research - but to think that she might have to use it was cause for a bit of concern. Was it common for demons to get to the point of their human companion needing to use a safeword?

_“I only mention this as a reminder. We appreciate that you are willing to help us continue our bloodlines, and to show this appreciation, we must take these things under consideration. You are well within your rights to use a safeword without fear of retribution or consequences.”_

“He says that every time,” Mira whispered in her ear. “It really is just a safety net. No one will blame you if you have to use it, Lucy.”

“R-Really?” she whispered back, looking into Mira’s kind, gentle blue eyes. “But why--”

“Some people like it rougher than others,” Flare whispered in her other ear. “You might jive with a guy in conversation, but between the sheets you’re a beast and he’s a meek little mouse. And maybe he’s not into it.”

“It’s about communicating your needs,” Mira said, causing Lucy’s cheeks to flame brilliantly. “The safeword’s the last resort, okay?”

Lucy nodded and gulped, looking back to the projection recording.

_“In the morning, you will be tested to see if your efforts were successful. If not, then you are welcome to enjoy breakfast in Ballroom C. If you are successful, then the demon you partnered with can give you more information about the next steps. As the ruler of Fiore and the Underworld, I, Mard Geer Tartaros, wish you all the best of luck in this endeavor.”_

Watching his slow blink just before the recording ended had Lucy’s stomach in knots. She wasn’t sure why. If it was sudden anxiety over what she’d committed herself to (though, she didn’t regret it), or maybe that she would be meeting with demons and hoping to charm one enough for him to fuck her (oh god, how was she going to pull _that_ off?!), or maybe just that she was about to lose her virginity and get pregnant all in one fell swoop (which, the longer she stood there, seemed like it was rushing things just a wee bit!). Still, she couldn’t just leave.

She’d been so adamant about this, to her friends, her parents, everyone who mattered. Most importantly, to herself. She couldn’t just back out.

A sudden round of feminine gasps drew Lucy’s attention to the doors she’d walked through to enter the ballroom. She hadn’t realized that the groups of women had created an arc around the edges of the ballroom. Or that the Class A group was directly across from the door. Or that the tables they’d been sitting at had been removed. But she saw the demons entering the ballroom wearing all manner of clothing from finely tailored suits to faded denim and strategically grungy t-shirts for the sake of aesthetics. But at the front, leading the pack of hungry male demonic gazes, was Mard Geer Tartaros, the ruler of Fiore and demonkind.

And he was looking right at her.

* * *

It wasn’t the sight of her that drew his attention - he’d already seen what she looked like, and knew she might be wearing red as the other Class A women did at every Crocus event - but her smell. Mard didn’t question how he knew that the gentle scent of morning dew and roses wafting through the air came from her. He just knew it, just as he knew that Mira - the half-demon he’d bedded last summer who still kept in touch as though they’d been friends since he was nothing more than a spawnling himself - would be attaching herself to the woman she thought was best suited for him. Mira was one hell of a half-demoness, that was for sure. And he’d come to find out that her matchmaking hunches were, more often than not, deadly accurate.

Maybe it was some latent clairvoyance that she couldn’t quite tap into with the human genes in her body, but she’d boasted to him last year that she was a genius matchmaker, and he’d challenged her to prove it. Of the 40 pairings she listed off (he was still just a little unnerved by how quickly she’d produced the information only minutes after they’d finished a final round between the sheets before she was to be tested for pregnancy), 39 of them had come to pass in the last year, each with a successful full-term birth. He was willing to allow a margin of error in her assuming that someone named Sting was a homosexual.

Mard had finally acknowledged that maybe she was right, and then he’d gotten a message from her just a few minutes ago, while he waited for the elevator to bring him this floor, to let him know that she’d found his match, and she was sure of it.

Maybe it was desperation on his part at this point. After over 100 of these events, he was starting to tire of participating, bedding a new woman every half-year for a single night. He just wanted to ensure his line’s succession. He wasn’t looking for love or companionship; he had Jackal for companionship, and love was never in the cards for him. He just needed a fertile female who could carry his seed and turn it into a living, breathing heir.

Still, Mira had latched onto the blonde woman whose file he’d seen, the one who’d never been to an event before. The virgin Heartfilia heiress.

He paused in the center of the room, a slow smile curling across his lips as he tore his gaze away from how her red silk blouse clung to her pinched waist, instead letting his eyes drift from one side of the ballroom to the other. Mard’s eyes landed on the Heartfilia woman again, and he had to stop himself from reacting to the hint of pink on her cheeks. “Let the Crocus Summer Event begin,” he said, his voice naturally carrying across the room. Mard gestured to the male demons behind him, and they dispersed throughout the room, heading to their respective classes to meet with the women they’d chosen.

His steps were slow and sure while he walked toward Class A, but he veered slightly toward the redheaded woman next to Lucy. If Mira believed she was the one he should be paired with, then he was going to be completely sure himself. He would speak with Lucy last. As he stopped in front of Flare, Mard’s stomach churned with something simmering and vicious as he heard another male introduce himself.

“Dan Straight. But I know I don’t need an introduction. I’m surprised to see you here, little Lucy.”

“Oh,” Lucy laughed. Mard smirked at Flare and brought her lax hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles, mimicking the perfect picture of decorum. Lucy didn’t sound all that enthusiastic about speaking with Dan. That was good. “Hey, Dan. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“You know, I was just at a lunch meeting with your dad earlier today,” Dan said. “He didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Flare,” Mard said, meeting her wide, crimson eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Th-Thanks,” she squeaked. He didn’t miss the way her head tilted just slightly to listen to Lucy’s conversation. Interesting.

“Unfortunately, we will only have ten minutes,” Mard said, leading her away from Lucy and Dan. “Do tell me more about yourself.”

“Well, uh…” He watched as Flare toyed with her hair for a moment. A meek gesture that nearly had him cringing. Still, it could be nerves for her. That was relatively common. When he thought about it, Mira Jane had been the only one who hadn’t been nervous to meet with him. She was an outlier. “I don’t know if you read it in my file, but I was actually raised by giants.”

Mard stopped breathing for a moment, mid-exhale, to process that information. “I did not know that,” he said.

Finally, Flare smiled at him. It made her look just a bit like she was detached from her sanity. “Yeah, they found me in an abandoned settlement and took me in when I was four,” she said. “Then when I was about sixteen, they brought me to another settlement and handed me over to a demon couple who finished raising me.”

That was… not what he’d expected to hear. In the slightest. Mard’s eyes narrowed slightly as she kept talking. He was much more interested in hearing what she had to say now.

* * *

Lucy was so thankful that Dan realized he’d been talking her ear off for fifteen minutes and that he needed to go talk with someone else. Mostly because another demon had “kindly” reminded him (she used the term loosely) that there were others waiting to speak with Lucy. And thankfully, that demon had been Laxus, a friend of Natsu’s she’d met maybe once in passing at a party a few years prior.

And Laxus had taken a few minutes to inform her that he wasn’t really interested, but added her as one of his choices because Natsu had asked him to do it. Because, Natsu knew how important this was to Lucy and, as her best friend who was also a demon (who probably would have been at the Summer Event if he wasn’t so madly in love with Lisanna, since his own family was considered nobility too, even though he never once acted like it), Natsu knew that there was a chance she wouldn’t be chosen. So, he’d asked Laxus to step in, on the off chance Lucy wasn’t picked.

It was both endearing, and a little pathetic, if she was being honest with herself.

“Nothing against you, Blondie,” Laxus said, smirking down at her. 

“You’re blond, too,” she muttered, crossing her arms under her chest.

“I’ve got my eyes on Mira,” Laxus said. “But Natsu’s been good to me and my family. Keeps Gramps from hounding me about finding a mate.”

“So, I’m a charity case,” she said, pursing her lips.

“Nah,” Laxus scoffed. “He said it’s important to you, and if that’s the case, then I’m willing to step in. At least, if nothing else, I can guarantee you’d enjoy yourself.”

That had Lucy rolling her eyes. Just what she wanted to hear. A guy talking about how amazing he was in the sack. It’s not like she would know, but that wasn’t the point. She at least knew what an orgasm felt like, so she wasn’t completely clueless. But still… Talking with Laxus was making this less endearing, and more pathetic. Hell, maybe her parents should’ve asked Natsu for pointers in dissuading her from wanting to come to the event. Between dealing with Dan’s perverted ass - who hit on her every chance he got, no matter how many times she’d turned him down - and Laxus’ offer of a pity fuck, the allure was wearing off.

“Just choose Mira,” she finally said, smiling up at him. “Really, Laxus. If she’s the one you want to be with, then go for it.”

“But--”

Lucy waved off his objections. “Natsu was sweet for trying, but it’s not fair to you to waste your time with me when you could have Mira.”

“There’s no guarantee,” he grumbled, nodding over to Mard Geer who was in the process of talking to a Class A woman Lucy didn’t know. “The king gets the pick of the litter, and he took her right out from under my nose last time.”

“It’s really not flattering to be referred to that way,” Lucy said. Things like that just perpetuated the notion that human women were being used as livestock for breeding.

“Sorry,” Laxus muttered, bashfully scratching the back of his head. “Anyway, if you’re sure…”

“I’m sure,” she said, smiling up at him again. She didn’t want to be second choice. Lucy had a feeling she wasn’t even in second place with Laxus, and that just soured her gut further. “Go get the girl of your dreams, Laxus. And thank Natsu for thinking of me if you see him first.”

“Will do,” he chuckled. “Good luck, Blondie.”

He turned and walked away, leaving Lucy feeling much less confident than before. Another male demon walked over to her, and she fought back her reaction to the scent of fish wafting off of him. He smelled like a tampon festering in tuna water for a week. Like a rancid vagina in need of a good douching with bleach and then a 45-minute scrub-down with steel wool. When his mouth opened to speak, Lucy was left holding her breath to avoid vomiting the meager half of a rice ball she’d eaten. Did he eat a steaming pile of shit before talking to her?

Fuck, she was gonna be sick. “Excuse me,” she croaked out before turning tail and walking as briskly as possible (without flat-out running, because she was sure he was a nice guy and that would be a hard hit to his pride) toward the exit of the ballroom. She turned once through the doors and leaned against a nearby wall.

“Everything okay?” a deep voice asked from nearby. Lucy jolted and looked up to find Kisame’s shark-like eyes looking down at her, his thin brows pulled together with concern.

“That guy smelled like he used spoiled salmon for lotion,” she wheezed. “I couldn’t.”

He chuckled and pulled a hand from his pocket - with Lucy only just realizing right then that he was wearing a sharp slate grey suit and his fingernails were painted a deep sea-blue - and held it out to her. She took his hand and slowly stood, then watched him lean against the wall beside her. “It can be like that,” he said. “Did anyone show you how to deny a request?”

She blinked. She could do that?!

When he laughed again, she realized that he could easily read her thoughts since they were clearly written all over her face. “They try to make sure guys like that are cleaned up beforehand,” he said, “But you have the option of denying anyone who sets you as their preliminary match.”

“How?” Damn, was that something that the women in Class A would have shown her if she’d showed up earlier? Or if she’d talked to more than just Flare?

Kisame turned her hand over, and Lucy activated her tech tattoo with a tap. She navigated through the screens and pulled up the notification she’d gotten showing the male demons who’d chosen her. He whistled low while scrolling through the list.

“What, is it bad?” she asked, looking at the projection.

“No,” he said, suddenly frowning. “It’s just a lot.”

“Is _that_ bad?!”

Kisame laughed and grinned down at her with his two rows of sharp teeth on full display. “Depends,” he said. “I can help though, if you’d like.”

“You can do that?” she breathed.

“Sure,” Kisame said. “You come to these enough, you figure out who the scumbags are. And I’ve been the bouncer in Crocus for about 20 years now.”

She smiled up at his profile while he scrolled back to the top of the list. “You don’t look old enough to have been doing this for 20 years,” she said. He chuckled softly. “Also, remove Dan from the list first.”

“Straight?”

She nodded with a grimace. “He’s a skeez.” She waited for him to find Dan’s name, then he showed her how to view the demon in question’s information along with a picture. It wasn’t much, just what Class the demon was, their name and affiliation and status of nobility, and how old they were. Still, she supposed if she met someone - like Mr. Stank-Pussy in there - and couldn’t stand the guy, she could remove them.

It was more of a relief than she’d expected to know that she had some say in this. It wasn’t just a matter of her being chosen by a demon and being fucked by him. She could still turn him down.

“Laxus Dreyar, too,” she said. When Kisame paused to stare at her, Lucy winced. “My best friend talked him into choosing me, and I’m not trying to lose my virginity with pity sex.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” he said, shaking his head while denying Laxus’ request. “What was the other guy’s name?”

“I, uh… didn’t get that far,” she muttered. Lucy turned and peeked back into the ballroom, scouring the inhabitants for the demon who’d nearly made her hurl. She found him flirting with another Class A woman who smiled demurely at him, batting her eyelashes and nibbling her lower lip. “Him.”

She felt Kisame lean around her, the warmth of his broad chest brushing over her arm. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah, he was already warned about that.” He went back to scrolling through the list, and Lucy found that she didn’t care what the guy’s name was. Request denied. That was what mattered most to her.

“A couple of these guys are losers,” Kisame said. “Or assholes. And if you get knocked up, I doubt you’ll want to be around them for that first year.”

She bit her lip and stared at the ground, at her formerly-navy blue heels and the black fabric of her slacks. “This was stupid,” she said softly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

Kisame grunted while clearing away more than half the names on her list.

“I mean, maybe my parents were right,” she sighed. “I didn’t _really_ know what I was getting myself into. And everything I read online only said so much. There’s so much people left out.”

“That because the morning after the event, you have to sign a nondisclosure agreement,” he said, more focused on the screen over her hand. “They know people want to hear about the events, but Crocus has some of the biggest names coming to the events. So there’s a list of things you can and can’t talk about.”

“Like the color coordinated clothes thing?” she muttered.

Kisame lowered her hand slightly, drawing Lucy’s attention to his face once again. How strange he looked, with those gills under his eyes and his skin such an exotic blue-grey color. “Surprisingly, no,” he said. “That’s just women being petty. They want to make themselves stick out more by making the newcomers look silly.”

She deflated just a bit at hearing that.

“If it’s any consolation, I think blue suits you,” he said. “Red, too, but I liked what you had on before.”

“Y-You did?” she asked. Lucy’s cheeks flushed slightly when his smile was directed at her once again, much softer than before and a whole lot less aggressive.

“Yeah,” he said. His grip on her hand tightened only slightly, just enough for Lucy to realize that his skin was a few degrees colder than hers. “You don’t need to blend in with them. You wear what makes you comfortable, what makes you feel good about yourself. Trying to be something you're not isn’t attractive, especially not to older demons who can sniff out a liar from a mile away.”

She bit her lip and opened the filter that Flare had given her, then removed the red color adjustment from her clothing.

“And as far as you not feeling like this was a good idea?” His other hand covered hers once she closed the screen. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Firsties go running out the back at this point. It’s natural. I mean, this whole event thing isn’t the most natural way to go about meeting someone. So you feeling like something’s a bit off? That’s just instinct.”

“So, then I should just go, right?”

“Only if you really don’t want to be here,” he said. “The choice is yours. Always has been.”

“Lucy, there you are,” Mira said, rounding the corner and staring at Lucy and Kisame in surprise. “O-Oh… I just…”

“Mira?”

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Mard’s looking for you,” Mira said. “Seriously, you’re leaving the _king_ waiting.”

“He, what?!” she squeaked. Why would Mard Geer be looking for her? Oh god… he’d been one of the demons who’d picked her?! How had she not realized that?!

Lucy bit her lips and looked from Mira to Kisame and back. She wasn’t sure what to do now. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go through with this. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to meet with the king. What if Mard Geer chose her? What if he actually chose her, and she couldn’t go through with it, and she chickened out? Could she really leave someone like _him_ in the dust?

“Lucy, come on,” Mira said.

“I-I…”

She looked back to Kisame. He’d been so kind, so understanding. What she wanted, if she went through with this, was someone like him. Someone who understood how new this was for her, who took time to help her calm down again. She’d never had an issue like this before - questioning herself, wishing she could disappear. Lucy had been confident her whole life. She’d prided herself on being a _take action_ kind of girl who stuck by her principles.

She’d promised herself that she’d make this a reality, and she didn’t go back on her promises.

“Just talking to the king won’t hurt,” Kisame said softly. “And if you decide you want to go afterward, then that’s your choice to make.”

“Wouldn’t it be rude to waste his time?” she hissed.

“Lucy?” Mira asked, stepping closer. “Hey, are you okay?”

She had to decide. But Lucy knew she couldn’t go back into that ballroom. When she thought about it, it felt too much like she was trying to auction herself off. Like she was one of those girls down in the redlight district, half-moaning while lounging in a window wearing lingerie, beckoning patrons closer.

“Nervous,” Kisame said, looking over at Mira finally. “Tell the king that Kisame says he’s needed out here.”

Lucy watched Mira walk away, then dropped her head back to the wall with a heavy sigh. She was a chicken. She was going to chicken out, when she’d been so adamant about this before. Moments later, she heard his footsteps approaching. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely open her eyes to look over when the footsteps stopped only a few feet from her.

“Kisame?”

Good heavens above, his voice was like silk now that she was hearing it in person. That recording earlier hadn’t done him justice.

Her stomach knotted further. She couldn’t do this.

“I found who you’re looking for,” Kisame chuckled. “She’s nervous, sir, what with this being the first time and all.”

Nervous was an understatement. Lucy was sure that her hair was going to start falling out in clumps with how badly this new wave of anxiety vibrated under her skin.

“That is understandable,” Mard said. He stepped closer. Oh fuck, she could hear him moving closer, and then when she breathed in, she smelled the darkest mixture of roses and sandalwood that her eyes flew open in a flash. He was so close.

And this close, he was beyond beautiful. His flawless skin, his thin nose and delicate jaw. The plum tresses of his thick hair pulled up into a ponytail with his bangs hanging down over his forehead and framing his face. She was a goner, so close. She still wanted to run like her life depended on it, but she couldn’t be rude. She couldn’t…

“Miss Heartfilia,” Mard said softly, reaching a hand out to her. Lucy’s hand naturally fell into his palm and she stopped breathing when his lips brushed across her knuckles. When he looked up at her through his lashes, her knees went just a little weak. “Would you like to have some coffee?”

“Wh-What?”

“Coffee,” Mard said, smirking as he stood to his full height again. “I usually have a cup about this time, and would like to invite you to join me.”

“B-But I…” Oh, now she was a stammering fool. This was attractive.

“This event is voluntary,” Mard Geer said. “You have the option of leaving whenever you choose to do so. No one will coerce you into staying.”

She glanced at Kisame to find that he’d left her to return to his post by the door. She guessed that was true. He hadn’t tried to talk her into staying. If anything, it had almost seemed like he was trying to help her justify leaving.

“Still,” Mard said, drawing her attention back to him, “I have selected you for the preliminary round, and I would like to at least have the opportunity to learn about you.”

She was well and truly speechless. Dan hadn’t let her get a single word in, and Laxus hadn’t really been all that invested in choosing her to begin with. “Over… coffee?”

“Yes,” he chuckled. Oh, that sound did a whole lot of something to her insides, and it wasn’t anything like the ball of nerves she’d been turning into. “A human custom, I know, but one I’m fond of. Shall we?”

Mard held his arm out for her, and Lucy found her footing. She pushed away from the wall and wrapped her arm around his, her fingers brushing delicately over the sleeve of his black suit jacket. “I guess going on a little coffee date is okay,” she said, smiling shyly at the ground. More normal, that was for sure. Her steps grew more steady as Mard led her in the opposite direction of the ballroom, toward a cordoned off section of the hotel that seemed to be closed for business. He led her to a definitely closed coffee shop, took her behind the counter, and donned an apron.

For the first time in what felt like days, Lucy laughed. She hadn’t expected it in the slightest, but the sight of the fearsome King of the Underworld, Mard Geer Tartaros, in a bright red Skubrats apron had her laughing just like the time Natsu had worn her panties to school on a dare. More surprising was the way he just raised a brow at her, shook his head, and prepared two cups of coffee.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to laugh.”

“I do believe that’s not true in the slightest,” he said, smirking over at her. Lucy bit her lips and watched him brew the coffee in silence after that. She wasn’t sure what more she could say. Or if she should be the one to start the conversation. Instead, she waited. If nothing else, she could at least talk with the king. She could decide whether she was willing to continue with the event after a cup of coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for this only being a two-shot... I'll need at least one more chapter to finish this up. I still haven't even gotten to the smut!


	3. Chapter 3

Knowing that Lucy was on the verge of leaving was not how Mard Geer had planned to start his conversation with her. While it was surprising to find that she’d volunteered for the event, considering her own station among the human nobility, he’d chosen her by the time he’d spoken with the second potential candidate. But if she truly wanted to leave, then there was no way he could force her to stay. And that would mean that he’d end up selecting his second choice, Flare.

He finished brewing and pouring their coffee, pausing in bringing the cup to her to ask if she needed anything added to it - effectively ruining a perfectly decent roast, in his opinion.

“Black is fine,” she said. Her laughter over his choice of preserving the dignity of his clothing with an apron had died down. Now, she sat at a nearby table - had pulled two chairs down for them both to sit, actually - and waited patiently for him. 

He sat in the seat across from her, and watched how she gently blew on her steaming mug before taking a sip. Her shoulders visibly relaxed when she swallowed.

“This is delicious,” she said, smiling over at him. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” he said, taking a sip himself. Not as good as his own roast at home, but it would suffice. Decent coffee was better than none, after all. They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment, but he was still keenly aware of the dwindling time they had. If he didn’t select Lucy, then he would need to claim Flare before the window closed for selections. If he did choose Lucy, and she decided to leave after the selection time closed, then Mard Geer would have to forgo an event for the first time since this all began.

“I’m sorry I almost bailed,” she said softly, staring down at her mug. “It’s just new. And kinda terrifying.”

“I understand,” he said, then his lips turned up just slightly at the corners. “As much as I am capable, never having been in your position, personally.”

When she laughed again, Mard Geer found himself entranced by the way her face lit up. He could see how nervous she was, of course, but her smile… There was something truly intoxicating about it. Both alluring and innocent. Lucy shook her head a moment later, sipping at her coffee again. “You said you wanted to know more about me?”

“Yes,” he said. “Do tell me more about yourself.” It was the same line he used every time he met a prospective match at an event. Direct, but offering his companion the opportunity to choose what information she presented him with. It also allowed him to see what was most important to her, depending on what she decided to talk about.

“Can I ask a question first?”

He nodded.

Lucy bit her lip and brushed her thumb across the rim of her mug, but she never took her gaze from his. “I know you reviewed my file, but what parameters were you looking at, specifically?”

His eyes flashed with intrigue. After more than 100 of these events, not once had a woman asked to know what he was interested in when reviewing potential matches. It wasn’t necessarily uncouth, but there seemed to be some unspoken rule among the women that they wouldn’t ask how they were selected. “I had seventeen candidates,” he began. “I organized them by breeding, and removed the half-demons I had already attempted a coupling with.”

Her cheeks flushed slightly at the implication. He wouldn’t reveal identities, but he had a feeling that she knew he’d bedded Mira Jane Strauss.

“After that, I removed any women who had already given birth to four or more children.”

“Why?”

His head tilted slightly, and his lips curled into a more prominent smile. “While they have proven their fertility in successfully carrying so many children to term, that is a personal preference. Birthing so many feels, to me, excessive.”

Her lips pursed, not in anger as he’d anticipated, but thoughtfully. She was genuinely considering what he said. Interesting.

“Then I removed certain blood types, as I have been informed they are less compatible with my own bloodline,” he said. “I was left with six candidates, who I met with tonight.”

“Did you read anything in the files?” she asked.

Mard chuckled softly and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I prefer talking with women over skulking through their files. While efficient, having a personal connection is more important.” Surprisingly, he noticed the final remnants of her anxiety melting away at hearing that. “I should add that I am aware of your… lack of sexual history.”

Just as he’d expected, her blush deepened. What he hadn’t expected was for her not to look away from him. Regardless of her embarrassment, he could tell that she’d been trained not to look away. Jude Heartfilia had conditioned her not to show weakness, then.

“If I’m being honest, that’s part of what surprised me over you choosing me,” she said.

“Why is that?”

“Because I’m a virgin,” she said. “I’m inexperienced. I’d assumed that it would be a less attractive feature in a match.”

Mard Geer nodded while taking another sip of his own coffee. “I can see why you might think that, but you are incorrect. Virginity is, in fact, a highly sought after  _ feature _ , as you said.” She was silent, visibly contemplating the information he’d given her. “Though you may be inexperienced, the opportunity to be your partner’s first experience is a promising one.”

“So, that’s why I had so many choose me,” she muttered, then winced. After another moment, she forced the sour turn her thoughts had taken from her face and smiled at him again. “You said you wanted to get to know me.”

“I did.”

She finished her coffee at the same time as him. If he hadn’t been the one to brew it, he would have ordered another cup for them both. His gaze shifted slightly toward the foyer where he saw Class B demons and lower escorting their matches toward the stairs in small groups. Class A and Class S had to wait for him to choose. He couldn’t let this drag on too long, but he didn’t want to rush either. Five more minutes. He could give her five more minutes of his time.

“Well, I split my time between doing research on the mating event to prepare for it, and preparing for entry into the university.”

“So you plan to attend university,” he said. “What interests you?”

“History,” she said, smiling down at her cup. Strange. Discussing this personal fact about herself made her more demure, but her virginal status hadn’t. “And demonology. I know a lot of humans don’t usually focus on it in school, but learning more about the different classifications has always been fascinating.”

“If I recall, demonology at the university also requires a language component,” he said. “You would be required to speak Abyssal.”

She winced. “Yeah, I know it’ll be hard. I won’t be able to speak it, since humans can’t produce those sounds. But I could maybe focus more on reading and translating it.”

“The written text in Abyssal is complicated if you can’t speak it,” he said. “The text depends on context to compensate for the lack of sound production.”

Her lips pursed again, and he found himself drawn in by the stubborn pinch between her thin brows. “I’ll figure something out,” she said. “History is my main focus anyway.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve always been good at remembering dates and events,” she said. “Job-wise, I’d have to figure that out as I go along.”

“You have no particular career in mind?” 

Lucy shrugged and smiled at him again. “I’d rather get the knowledge I’m more interested in, then figure out the next step after that.”

Mard Geer wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about her lack of concern over her future career. On the one hand, if she was unsuccessful in producing an heir for him, then he would have no need to worry. On the other hand, even if she did produce an heir, she would only stay on as a nursemaid for the first year of the child’s life.

“How about you?” she asked.

“Well, I am the king,” he said, smirking when she laughed.

“No, I mean, did you always  _ want _ to be the king?”

She’d surprised him once again. Mard Geer couldn’t recall a time when someone had asked him whether he wanted to rule. “When I was younger, no,” he said. “But after seeing the way the Underworld had been run for far too long, I felt compelled to remedy it.”

“Can I ask how?”

His smirk widened. “War,” he said. She wasn’t surprised or disgusted by it, but seemed to be more intrigued. “I gathered an army of my own and we fought for a century to bring the old Emperor to ruin. Becoming the king was not entirely my choice. The demons nominated me to rule as a result of leading a successful coup against the Emperor."

“And then you came here to Earthland sometime afterward,” she mused.

“I did,” he said. He wasn’t going to go into detail on that. Lucy didn’t need to know the specific reasoning for the demons leaving the Underworld. Not all of them had left, after all. There were still hundreds of races in the Underworld, like the monstrous leviathan and her brood, and the succubi who would have threatened the peaceful rule he’d envisioned in Earthland. He was pulled from his musing by a soft feminine voice making an announcement over the PA system. 

_ “Two minutes remaining until the selection process ends.” _

“Oh, wow,” Lucy whispered.

“I do not wish to force you into something you are uncomfortable with,” Mard Geer said. “But I will need to know your decision on whether you will stay.”

He didn’t have long. And he hated that he was being forced to rush through this process. Still, it was the most efficient, and although it was a nuisance, he’d agreed to these stipulations. They bound him just as the other demons in attendance were bound.

Damn Freed and the rules he conjured up.

“Is it horrible of me to say that I’m kinda freaking out inside?”

“Not at all,” he chuckled.

“I didn’t even really talk to anyone,” she said, chewing on her lower lip. “Dan talked my ear off, but I rejected him. Then Laxus, but I turned him down too. And then some other guy… And I ran out…”

“Would it set you at ease knowing that I would like to select you?”

“Well, you picked me as a preliminary,” she sighed. “But that--”

“I mean as my final choice,” he said. Mard Geer laid his hand over hers where it sat just next to her empty mug. “If you decide that you cannot participate, then I will choose another; however, I would prefer to spend this mating event with you.” 

He very nearly laughed at the way she blanched, knowing full-well that it wasn’t disgust that made her react so openly by what she said next. “M-Me?!”

“Is that so surprising?”

“Have you  _ seen _ the other women in there?” she nearly screeched. “I’m chopped liver in comparison!”

“I have,” he said. “Just as I have seen and spoken with you.” Mard Geer leaned closer only slightly when she glanced toward the ballroom to find women and demons leaving together toward either the main staircase or the elevators. He wasn’t going to mention that he liked eating liver. That would probably not work in his favor. “Lucy, you are the choice I have made, unless you decide to leave.”

_ “Selection process ending in 30 seconds.” _

“Unfortunately, I must ask for your decision now, Lucy,” he said. Mard Geer pulled a small silver disc from his pocket and squeezed the sides to activate his selection screen. He had yet to switch over to tech tattoos, as had most of the population, so he was left with computers and handheld devices like this one.

“M-My decision?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling up her file and Flare’s, ensuring Lucy couldn’t see the information for his second choice. Confidentiality at these events was key, as much as was possible. A countdown appeared above their files. Ten seconds left.

_ 9. _

_ 8. _

Why was she delaying? Why wasn’t she answering? He looked into her widened honey eyes. “Will you stay here with me tonight, or leave the event? The decision is yours alone.”

_ 3. _

_ 2. _

“I’ll stay,” she breathed.

Mard Geer opened her file and finalized his selection just as the timer hit zero. He waited for the page to load, then silently breathed a sigh of relief when the confirmation page appeared with her picture.

Lucy jumped and opened the projection screen for her tech tattoo, then read through the confirmation that listed the room she was to meet him in.

Mard Geer stood and smoothed out his clothing, then offered a hand to her. “Miss Heartfilia,” he said, blinking slowly when she stared up at him with some expression he couldn’t name. “Allow me to escort you.”

She nodded - a slow, distracted gesture - set her hand in his, and stood on trembling legs. He felt how she shook with every step closer to the elevators. Still, the scent of dark roses wafting off of her called to him. She was nervous, understandably so, but he would ease her into this. 

As they walked, he continued their previous conversation by asking what her favorite season in Earthland was, and admitting after she answered that she loved winter he’d experienced snow for the first time when he came to Earthland. She laughed while imagining the look on his face at the time.

Mard Geer enjoyed how full her laughter was, and the way it filled the elevator they rode toward his penthouse suite.

* * *

By the time they reached Mard’s suite, Lucy was nothing more than a ball of nerves inside. As she’d watched the screen in the elevator climbing higher as it indicated the floor they passed, she’d felt her anxiety ratcheting higher as well. Still, their conversation flowed easily. He was surprisingly forthcoming with answers to such trivial questions as what  _ his _ favorite season was in Earthland - also winter, but only aesthetically, because he didn’t like how cold the snow was - or what his favorite color was - red, but then he’d mentioned that he found the color blue particularly enchanting after seeing her in it - or if he could have any superpower, what would it be - telepathy, but she didn’t understand why he’d been smirking as much as he had when he’d said it.

Mard led her into the suite, guiding her to the couch instead of the bedroom that she knew was through a door off to the left. She wasn’t sure why, though. If they were supposed to start the event, then shouldn’t she be in the bed? Naked? Trembling while trying to relax enough to lose her virginity?

“Would you choose the ability to fly or immense strength?” he asked.

Lucy smiled while watching him sit down gracefully beside her. Once they’d gotten to this super power conversation, he’d latched onto it. “Flying,” she said. “Being strong would be nice, but I’m short. I could fly up a few feet to reach the top shelf instead of getting a step ladder.”

Mard chuckled softly at her response. “Flying,” he agreed. “It is more tactically effective in war.”

She laughed and shook her head, leaning her arm on the back of the couch. Most of his answers had revolved around being in a fight of some sort. She wondered how much that coup against the previous Emperor of the Underworld had affected the way he viewed the world. “Did you come to Earthland because you knew humanity was on the brink of destruction?”

A sharp knock on the door cut off any response he might have given her. Their visitor didn’t wait for Mard’s permission to enter, instead walking in and coming to bow slightly in front of the couch. Lucy looked up at the woman who stood to her full height when Mard ordered her to. She was clearly old enough to be Lucy’s grandmother, with pale pink hair tied up into a high bun, and wrinkles around her piercing green eyes that bored into Lucy’s skull. The woman’s lips pursed, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth, almost as though she’d smelled something off-putting. Her white lab coat gave Lucy a pretty good idea about just why she was there.

“This is Porlyusica,” Mard said, taking Lucy’s hand in his. He turned her palm skyward. “She is my personal physician, and will be testing your blood to determine your ovulation cycle.”

“O-Oh,” Lucy breathed. She winced and pushed her hand closer to Porlyusica, watching as the woman withdrew a thin white pen from her pocket and pricked Lucy’s index finger. She watched the small blue screen on the side, waiting for results to show up, then her lips pursed further.

“She’s on the cusp, my king,” Porlyusica said. “I would recommend administering the medication to increase the likelihood of success.” She looked at Lucy then. “In the event of a lack of success, you should expect your cycle to start a few days earlier than usual.”

Lucy was suddenly reminded that this was really happening. Her conversation with Mard was a means of relaxing her before their clothes came off and she laid down for him to fuck her. She was really about to lose her virginity, but only after she was given a shot that would trick her body into ovulating earlier than nature intended. She forced herself not to draw her hand away from Mard’s slight grip when Porlyusica pulled a small notebook from her pocket, checked several pages, then put it back and instead withdrew a syringe and small vial with a medical label on the side.

Lucy chewed at her cheek nervously while Porlyusica filled the syringe.

“Would it be possible for me to administer the shot?” Mard asked, drawing Lucy’s attention to him in an instant. He pulled her hand away from Porlyusica, setting it on the couch between them. But he didn’t let her go. His long, thin fingers curled around her hand gently, offering a small bit of comfort that she hadn’t expected.

“Yes, my king,” Porlyusica said. She placed a bright orange cap on the needle, withdrawing a sealed alcohol pad from another pocket on her white coat. “I’ll be back in the morning to test her.” She handed both items to Mard, then bowed once more and left the suite.

“Wh-What…” Lucy was baffled. Why had he asked to be the one to give her the shot? Did he even know how? Why had Porlyusica agreed? Was that even ethical?

Mard pulled both of her hands into his after setting the syringe and alcohol pad on the nearby end table. His thumbs brushed across her knuckles, and her breath hitched as she met his steady gaze. “This medication is highly effective,” he said. “It will affect you very quickly in both forcing your body to ovulate and increasing your libido, but I want to give you an opportunity to fully experience the loss of your virginity without anything affecting you.”

“Is it going to make me…” She cringed slightly. “It won’t make me feel  _ high _ or anything, right?”

“No,” he chuckled. “But you should understand the pleasure that your body feels naturally, without outside factors increasing your sensitivity.”

“So, you… wanted to give me a normal experience?” she asked softly.

“I do,” he said. “If that is what you wish for as well.”

The amount of care he showed her was baffling. And worthy of quite a bit of swooning inside her head. Still, she knew that it was going to be different with a demon than if she’d lost her virginity to a human. And it was definitely going to be a wholly different experience being with a demon like Mard who, she had a strong inkling, wasn’t nearly as familiar with human customs as other demons who were more integrated into what she considered normal society.

She’d read all about how most demonic nobles didn’t kiss. Mouths were for licking and sucking and biting at flesh you could reach during sex, not for kissing one another. That was a human custom, and she was sure that Mard was like those other demon nobles.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She wasn’t sure if she was ready at all, but Lucy still nodded and stood to follow Mard into the adjoining bedroom. He gestured for her to sit on the bed, and closed the door behind them. It was comfortable as she sat down, with a plush comforter that she was sure would be of no use to them that night. This bed wasn’t going to be used for sleeping. It was a place for her to lie down on her back or propped up on her hands and knees while she tried to get pregnant for a demon she didn’t know much about.

Mard set the syringe and alcohol pad on the nightstand, but didn’t sit beside her. He stood in front of her and reached up to the top button of his shirt. His fingers were swift, deftly pushing buttons through the holes until his shirt was untucked and fully unbuttoned, baring his pale chest and slender stomach for her suddenly hungry eyes.

She wasn’t unaware of what a shirtless man looked like. Lucy had done her research. She’d been attracted to men in the past, and found that there wasn’t one specific body type that she preferred. When she’d scoured porn sites to try understanding what she might be expected to do in bed, she’d found herself attracted to all sorts of body types in the men in those videos.

Mard unbuttoned his sleeves and let his shirt fall to the floor, then reached up to the tie in his hair and loosened it. She forgot how to breathe when his hair cascaded down around his shoulders, down over his chest, down to his hips. He was beautiful, so painfully beautiful while standing there before her in only a pair of black slacks.

“For tonight, we are equals,” he said, snapping her out of her suddenly lewd thoughts. He smirked down at her wide-eyed expression, holding a hand out for her. Once she placed her hand in his, he pressed her palm to his stomach, slid it higher. She felt the soft tresses of his midnight hair brushing against the back of her hand. “You have just as much right to touch me, to taste me, and sate your desire.”

“O-Okay,” she squeaked. Her arm was fully outstretched, but she didn’t want to stop, so Lucy stood slowly from the bed, moved her hand higher up to the nape of his neck.

His fingers brushed against her racing pulse and down to the hollow beneath her throat. “Do not feel self-conscious,” he breathed. “I find natural reactions more arousing than forced ones.”

Did he mean that he didn’t want her to pretend to moan during sex like those women in pornos? Sure, some of them seemed to be acting just a little  _ too _ much, but Lucy also didn’t really know whether they were faking the way they screamed, or if it felt that good to have sex.

Mard leaned down to whisper in her ear as his fingers slid lower to start unbuttoning her blouse. “Some women moan, some scream,” he rasped. As he spoke, her eyes slid closed and her head tipped back just slightly while she allowed the soft brushes of pressure against her breasts to overwhelm her senses. “And others are so quiet, you can barely hear them whimper. No matter the sounds you make, remember that I want to hear them. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she sighed. She arched against him once her blouse was completely open, allowing her bra-covered breasts and stomach to teasingly slide against him.

“There is little that does not arouse me,” he said, nipping lightly at her ear. “All I ask is that you not pull my hair.”

Lucy laughed and sifted her fingers through his hair, scraping her nails against his scalp. The way Mard hummed and pulled her earlobe between his lips as his hands skimmed over her waist gave her a little more confidence. Enough confidence to reach down and carefully unbutton his slacks and slide them down his legs.

She froze when she realized that he wasn’t wearing underwear. He’d only had the pants on, and she felt the proof of it in the bare skin of his hips and short trimmed patch of hair against her knuckles.

She was too scared to look. She wanted to see him, but she couldn’t bring herself to lower her gaze. Or open her eyes. Even as his soft fingers skimmed across her shoulders, pushing her shirt off and onto the floor, she stayed there, unable to move. Unable to breathe. Even as she felt him shift to step out of his pants on the floor, as his tongue dragged down the column of her throat and brought goosebumps all along her skin, she was stuck.

“Do not be afraid,” he rasped. “Touch me wherever you wish.”

Her fingers trembled with anticipation and dread as she forced herself to place her hands on his stomach again. His touch was gentle as he guided her stuttering feet to move closer to the bed, then to kneel on it in front of him while he popped the clasp on her black satin bra. She was thankful that she’d had the forethought to wear a strapless bra as he caught the material and tossed it into the room. Lucy wasn’t sure if her hands could move from his stomach. She felt anchored, frozen in fear of going further, even as he cupped her breasts in his hands.

Mard’s head shifted lower, his tongue burning a searing path down the center of her chest. He paused just before moving over to take her pert nipple into his mouth, looking up into her widened eyes.

If she didn’t relax, this wouldn’t work. She  _ needed _ to calm down. Because if she was too tense, then her body would have a harder time reaching an orgasm. And having an orgasm would prime her cervix, make it easier for Mard’s seed to wriggle further into her and attach to an egg. She just had to calm down. She could do this. It was just her virginity. No big deal! She could do it. Take a deep breath, put on her big girl panties, and--

Mard’s head lifted and his thin brows drew together in what she was sure was confusion. One hand left her breast, and his thumb brushed across her cheek. “Do not cry,” he said. “I will ensure you are in no pain.”

Lucy took a shaky breath and bit her lower lip. “I-I’m sorry,” she whispered. If Mard had participated in every single event since the first, that was over a hundred women he’d fucked in the past 60 years. How was she supposed to compete with that? She had no idea how to make  _ him _ feel good, how  _ he _ could possibly enjoy himself. What if she just laid there like a dead fish? What if--

“You are not the first to react this way,” he said. That wasn’t helping. It only reminded her of how inexperienced she was, especially in comparison to him. Would it be better if she just laid face down and let him fuck her so he wouldn’t have to deal with her stupid virgin nerves? She held her breath as his face moved closer. His nose brushed lightly against hers, his soft lips grazing her own for the briefest of moments. “What can I do to set you at ease?” he breathed. “Tell me, and it is yours.”

That was the problem, though. She didn’t know. Lucy was so overwhelmingly unprepared for this, when she’d thought mere hours earlier that she was ready. She’d saved everything for this moment. She’d forgone normal relationships in school for this. She’d been so stupid.

Mard drew back slightly, allowing her to see a small smirk sitting on his lips. “I have the honor of experiencing many of your firsts, Lucy,” he said. “Would you like the same?”

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “Wh-What do you mean?”

His nose brushed against hers again. “It is a human custom I am aware of,” he said against her lips. “I have never partaken myself.”

“What--” She gasped as his tongue flicked across her lips.

“Would you be my first kiss?” he rasped.

Blood pounded in her ears, and she nodded before she was aware of moving in the slightest. Slowly, he moved closer, until it seemed as though time stopped completely once his lips met with hers. She wasn’t aware of the soft moan that escaped her as one small kiss turned into a second. Her hands ghosted, feather-light across his stomach and chest while she pressed herself against him. Her back arched as his arms wound around her waist, leaving no space between them.

It meant that she was able to feel his prominent arousal pressing into her insistently, even as his head tilted to one side and her lips willingly parted for his tongue to slide between them. Mard groaned when her tongue battled his for dominance, moving a hand to the back of her head while his other hand slid lower to grope at her still-clothed backside.

Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment over how openly he displayed his own arousal, but then she realized… she was the one doing this to him. Even as she fought to remember what it was to breathe, even as her hands dove into his thick hair and heat swept across her flesh in a sudden torrential wave,  _ she _ was affecting him. She’d never done this before, but she suddenly felt powerful, even as his hips shifted and ground his thick length against her stomach.

Lucy forced her tongue into his mouth instead, tasting coffee and something darker, something sweeter as he growled at such a low depth that she felt it vibrating in her bones. Her tongue retreated briefly, then she bit into his lower lip - not hard enough to draw blood, but just enough for Mard to hiss and push her down onto the bed without any warning.

He attacked her lips then, more aggressively than before as he knelt between her legs. Just kissing him was a heady experience. She nearly lost all sense of self as his fingers toyed with her nipples. She’d never tried  _ that _ before!

A strangled whimper crawled up her throat, barreling out of her when Mard’s hips shifted, and his arousal ground against her sex. Lightning-fast, pleasure sped across her nerves and left her moaning softly as he moved again. 

She blushed at the feeling her panties soaking with her own arousal. She… hadn’t realized that could happen. But it was. As Mard ground against her, reaching down and hooking one leg over his hips while he kept kissing her, Lucy very nearly pulled back to hide her face from him. Except she was already lying on the bed, and she couldn’t move away.

The best she could manage - and it took all of her willpower to do it - was turning her head to the side and clamping her lips shut as his teeth dragged down her throat. She felt another jolt of pleasure rocket through her as his hips flexed, running his full length over her still-clothed sex. He pepper her chest with open-mouthed kisses and soft nips against her flesh, then closed his mouth over her nipple and sucked.

Lucy’s back bowed from the bed and she pulled him closer to her as her head tipped back on a long moan. His hand toyed with her unattended nipple, plucking and pinching the delicate bud in time with his expert tongue on her opposite breast. She cried out again as she felt more moisture collecting in her panties, the way her body tightened in anticipation of this winding feeling she’d grown accustomed to. How was he able to do this without touching her most intimate of areas? How was he making her feel like this?

“Touch me,” he moaned against her heaving chest. “Touch me, Lucy.”

Without a thought, she reached between them and wrapped her hand around his cock, then went still at the same time as he did. Mard took a shuddering breath that skittered along her heated skin, but Lucy was more concerned with the thickness in her hand, the weight of him, the soft skin and flared head beneath her fingertips. Her free hand rested on his shoulder as she slid down to feel the base of him, and that was when she realized how tense he was.

It almost made her pause to ask if this was what he meant. But then his lips slid up to her throat, to her ear, and the softly garbled moan that escaped him as she started slowly stroking his arousal left Lucy stunned. With his arms resting on either side of her head, she was able to appreciate the way his breaths left him in soft panting huffs. He sounded so breathless, so overcome by passion as he gasped and whispered,  _ “Yes… yes, more,”  _ into her ear.

She was able to please him. Just with her hand, he already sounded like this.

“Mard, my pants,” she whimpered. She hated this wet, sticky feeling between her legs. She stroked him again as he reached down to the button on her pants, gasping when he groaned loudly and grabbed the hem instead. He shivered as her free hand lowered between them, slid down further, and gently cupped his balls. She’d seen women do it in pornos before, and the men always seemed to like it. “L-Like this?”

“Yes,” he groaned. On her next stroke, she felt his grip on her pants tighten, his hand twisting the fabric almost painfully around her hips. “Lucy, yes!”

She felt the material give way half a second before she heard the stitches in her pants tear. Lucy squeaked as he tore the last remnants of her clothing off and tossed her pants and underwear off the bed. She couldn’t dwell on it when he kissed her again, his tongue plunging roughly into her mouth. Or when his hand slid between her legs, and his fingers slipped across her drenched sex. She’d never imagined he would be this vocal. When she’d seen pictures or video recordings of Mard in the past, this wasn’t what she’d imagined. That he would be so openly admitting what he enjoyed.

She couldn’t question it though. Not when he groaned against her lips and slid a finger into her weeping sex, pumping it slowly to allow her to get used to the way it felt.

It was different than what she’d expected. So different from her own fingers. Was it because this was someone else, touching her, teasing her voice into letting out a wanton moan that had Mard drawing back to look into her eyes.

“That is what I want to hear,” he said, smirking down at her as his hand drew back and he added another finger. He pumped them once, twice, then planted them deeply within her and scissored them in a way that had Lucy crying out in surprise, even as she tried to keep stroking him. Her hand stilled after only a moment of feeling the magic he worked with his own fingers. She couldn’t… She couldn’t keep up. His cock slid from her grasp, and she watched him lick a searing path down the center of her chest, past her navel, then finally paused at the small patch of golden curls above his pistoning fingers.

“Wh-What are…” Lucy gasped when she saw the wicked grin curling his thin lips, felt his hair trailing over her quivering thighs.

“Remember,” he rasped, his hot breath against her core making her jump. “Do not pull my hair.”

Lucy barely had a chance to nod before his head lowered. His lips wrapped around her sensitive bud, his tongue teasing it with quick brushes of contact that had her hips jerking. She tried to hold herself still. Tried so hard to keep herself in place so he didn’t have to work too hard, but it didn’t seem to matter. His hand twisted, hitting a new spot inside of her that had Lucy’s body drawing taut, and then his teeth barely grazed her clit. She screamed as she broke apart around his fingers, her hips bucking wildly as Mard moved again and prolonged her climax.

She wasn’t sure how he did it. She just knew that it had never been this intense before when she’d masturbated. Was it the combination of his tongue and fingers? Something else? No matter how hard she tried to riddle her way through it, she knew it was pointless. It didn’t matter, because she could feel her body spasming around his still-pistoning fingers, and she could feel something more intense pressing down on her chest, flushing her cheeks with a deeper shade of red. Her nipples were suddenly tight peaks against the cold air in the room.

Lucy gripped the thick comforter beneath her, her eyes widening as a third finger slipped into her. “M-Mard!”

“Let go,” he hummed against her. “Just let go, Lucy.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant. She’d already had an orgasm. Why wasn’t he stopping? Why was he still going, as though she could have another one so soon? She propped herself up on her elbows, staring down at him as he feasted on her. Seeing it made what he did all the more real. Somehow, seeing how quickly his hand moved, hearing the slick sounds of his hand meeting with her drenched sex and the way he groaned against her… Her breaths came faster, faster still until something snapped from deep within her, and she collapsed back onto the bed with a sharp cry of ecstasy that brought tears to her eyes as searing heat soared down to her toes.

He slowed down then. Three fingers changed to two, then just one finger circled inside of her, easing her back down from the out-of-body experience he’d forced her to endure. Her body shook violently as he easily pulled her more fully onto the bed, then rolled her onto her stomach. “W-Wait,” she whimpered. “Please, M-Mard…”

He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and brushed her hair from her face as he crawled on top of her. His weight settled carefully over her, caging her in even as his knee pushed her legs apart. “Of course,” he breathed against her cheek. Mard hummed quietly as his hand slid under her belly to slowly massage her throbbing sex. “I did tell you that I would cause you no pain.”

“I-I don’t…” How did she tell him that she wasn’t sure if she could handle anything more? Was she really expected to still be able to move after he’d so thoroughly fried her nerves with just a couple orgasms?

“I want you to be greedy,” he said, brushing his nose against her flushed cheek. “Tonight, learn everything there is to know about your body.” His fingers pressed more firmly against her tender flesh, and Lucy moaned into the bedding scrunched up beneath her. “Can you do that, Lucy?”

Her breath caught in her throat as she felt him prodding her entrance. He lifted her hips slightly, and she reached out to take hold of his free hand. Mard’s fingers laced with hers, and he held her gaze as his hips pressed closer. This was it. It was really happening… His grip on her hand tightened marginally as his cock dipped into her for the briefest of moments.

“Don’t look away,” he breathed. “Not until I’ve filled you completely.”

Lucy’s eyes shot open, holding his steady, half-lidded gaze as her hips shifted back to envelope him more fully. He was thicker than the toy she’d practiced with, longer than even his fingers that had played so freely with the strings of her arousal. By the time his hips were flush against her, Lucy nearly felt like she couldn’t breathe. Was it because he was so close, because he filled her so fully? Or was it this look in his onyx eyes that drew her closer, closer still until their breath mingled and her lips pressed a quivering kiss to his chin, his lower lip.

“Congratulations,” he breathed out in a strained chuckle. “You are no longer a virgin.”

She kissed him desperately after that, as her hips shifted and she learned just what it felt like for white-hot pleasure to spear through her core as he withdrew and pushed back in.

* * *

Kisame stretched with his arms over his head as he heard footsteps approaching from a side hallway. It had been thirty minutes since the last of the participants left the ballroom to head up into the hotel proper, and fifteen minutes since the last of the women who weren’t chosen at this event left. He turned and grinned at his old friend’s younger brother, Suigetsu. That meant his shift for the night was finished, and he could head home to rehydrate and relax until the morning when he needed to be back for the ending ceremony.

“Good event?” Suigetsu asked.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Kisame chuckled. The night shift was the easiest. All Suigetsu had to do was ensure no one was able to get inside. Considering all other entry points were blocked off, and other demons were stationed at them anyway on the off chance that someone tried to break through the blockades, it was a simple gig.

Heavy pounding on the solid wooden door behind him had Kisame frowning. No one would be pounding on that door this late into the evening. Anyone who was supposed to be there was already inside - Suigetsu had been sleeping in a room upstairs until his shift started, and while Kisame had the option of also sleeping there for the night, he wanted to be in his own bed - and even if someone had shown up late, they could use the scanner outside to read their registration.

“Let me in!” a familiar voice whined, leaving Suigetsu groaning in annoyance while Kisame rolled his eyes and reached for the handle.

“Just leave him out there, man,” Suigetsu sighed. “He does this every time.”

“I can’t,” Kisame said. “You know he’ll whine out there all night.”

“I can ignore him. Maybe he’ll get the picture.”

“He’s the king’s lapdog,” Kisame said, pulling the door open to reveal Jackal with a scowl on his face and his ears lowered flat against his head. “Jackal, you know you’re not supposed to be here.”

Jackal ignored him and slipped inside, his tail swishing angrily behind him. Kisame shut the door and rounded on him, grabbing the blond demon by the scruff of his neck. “Where’s Mard Geer?”

In all honesty, Kisame felt bad for him. He’d heard countless stories of Jackal’s role in the war against the Emperor in the Underworld. This once-great general with a curse power that could level all of Crocus with just a snap of his fingers, had been reduced to Mard Geer’s pet. He didn’t show any of the pride he should have, considering the title he’d once held. But a head injury does horrible things to even the most fearsome fighters. Everyone who worked closely with the king or his cabinet knew the story.

How Jackal had taken a hit from the Emperor meant for Mard Geer, and nearly died in the process. How half of his skull had been crumbled to dust, and the resulting rampage from Mard Geer was what turned the tide of battle. There were whispers about Mard Geer staying by Jackal’s side while he recovered, and nearly silent rumors telling a tale of the newly crowned King of the Underworld crying when he learned that his fearless general had been reduced to the mentality of a child.

Jackal could still do plenty of damage, if angered enough. That was why Mard Geer kept him close, allowed Jackal to follow him almost anywhere.

“Where is he?” Jackal asked, twisting in Kisame’s grasp in a vain attempt at getting him to let go. “He left me behind!”

“It’s the mating event,” Suigetsu spat. “You know you can’t be here.”

“The king is upstairs with the human he chose,” Kisame added. “We go through this every time, Jackal. You’re not supposed to be here until morning.”

“But if I wait until the morning, then I have to wait for the doctor. And he wants me there before she gets there!” Kisame almost flinched when Jackal grabbed his arm with both hands, the black tinted skin of his fingers heating up in his agitation. “He needs me there!”

“Pretty sure he doesn’t need you sniffing at his balls while he’s fucking--” Suigetsu yelped when Jackal glared at him and the marble tile just in front of Suigetsu’s feet exploded.

This wasn’t going to end well. Kisame scowled and shook Jackal, gaining a golden-eyed glare. “You don’t go into the  _ bedroom _ until the doctor gives you permission,” he said firmly. He saw it in that moment. Through the bared, snarling teeth and the anger, Jackal looked lost. Alone. Confused over not being allowed near Mard Geer. “If you want the king to have an heir, then you leave them alone in the bedroom.”

Jackal nodded quickly, his sneer morphing into merely pursed lips. “I can walk,” he muttered.

“Kisame, you go too easy on him,” Suigetsu called out as Kisame carried Jackal over to the elevator and set him down. “I won’t take the fall for you on this one!”

Kisame grinned as they stepped into the elevator, turning toward Suigetsu and simply waving as the doors closed. He and Jackal were silent during the trip up to the penthouse suite, until the doors were about to open again. Kisame’s hand shot out, his blue fingers wrapping around the back of Jackal’s neck, and he guided the shorter demon into the main living quarters. He pointed to the closed bedroom door, where they could clearly hear Lucy moaning incoherently, violently slapping skin, and Mard Geer growling in time with his heavy thrusts.

Kisame watched Jackal’s ear flatten against his head as he stared at the closed door.

“You don’t open that door for anything,” Kisame hissed. “When Doc Porlyusica comes to examine her, you  _ stay out here _ . Understood?”

Jackal stayed silent and nodded. Kisame set him on the couch, pointed to the nearby bathroom and the kitchen.

“Go there if you have to piss,” he said. “And there if you’re hungry. Don’t make a sound and distract them.”

Jackal nodded again, staring down at his feet that looked more like paws.

Kisame shook his head, grumbled under his breath about being a bleeding heart, and left Jackal alone on the couch, listening to Mard Geer as he tried for the 120th time to impregnate a woman and have an heir to his throne.

* * *

Mard Geer wished he hadn’t taken his hair down halfway through the night when he felt it sticking to his back and under his arms. But Lucy loved touching it every chance she got. She sunk her fingers into his sweaty hair, pulled him closer, begged him to feast on her flesh as he pounded into her weeping sex with every ounce of strength he possessed.

She was insatiable. Truly irresistible. He found himself lured into her web every time he found his release, in the way her arms wrapped around him so tenderly, how she held him close to her while she trembled beneath him. And as soon as he hardened again, as soon as he picked back up where their previous round had left off, she met him with just as much ferocity.

It wasn’t until the halfway point of the night that he caught the quick glint of light hitting the unused syringe on the nightstand. Mard’s pace faltered. He’d forgotten to give her the shot. He’d been so enraptured by her every soft mewl, her hesitant virginal touches, that he’d lost track of the one thing he’d had no intention of forgetting.

This was all going to be for naught. Again.

If he gave it to her then, it would be too late. Yes, the drug was quick to act, but how many hours had been wasted with her not under its influence? How much of his seed had he spilled inside of her without the drug to help her body along?

Not only that, but she would still be under its effects when Porlyusica arrived, if he gave it to her right then. Which could throw off the test, as had happened in the past. Mard Geer couldn’t have false hope dangled in front of him like that again.

Lucy pushed him down onto the bed, crawled into his lap, grasped his cock and impaled herself quickly. Her nails dug faint crescents into his chest as she bounced on him. “L-Lucy, we--”

“Mard,” she groaned. “Fuck, cum inside me again.”

His eyes widened in shock at that. She’d definitely grown more comfortable as he hadn’t let her relax for long, but…

She slammed down and swirled her hips, grinning at him as though there was a secret she knew that he wasn’t privy to. For the briefest of moments, he was shocked into stillness, just long enough for her to grab his hands and slam them down onto the bed. “You never told me it’d feel so  _ good _ .”

Her slick sex tightened around his cock, making him ache with need. The syringe on the nightstand was no longer important. He forgot all about it as Lucy started up a torturously fast pace, rocking her hips in a way he’d never before experienced. It was enough for him, lying beneath her, giving her an opportunity to experience the powerful feeling of holding a demon like himself down. He felt the telltale tightening in his loins, and his upper lip curled as his teeth gnashed together. He wanted to hold off, to feel her dripping sex milking him dry. He could practically smell her teetering on the edge of her own release.

Oh, how he wanted to feel it, to feel  _ her _ falling apart around him again.

“Will you give me a child?” he panted, gazing into her hazy eyes.

“Yes,” she rasped. “As many as you want.”

The admission coiled its way into the center of his chest, squeezed his organs so tightly he forgot how to breathe. He forgot to control himself. Mard roared as he flipped their positions, spearing into her a final time as he spilled over once more. He didn’t see the flash of excitement in her eyes. He didn’t hear the nearby window breaking as his thorned roses crashed through it and covered over the gaping hole.

* * *

Jackal whined and looked over at the closed bedroom door when he heard glass shattering. He wasn’t allowed to go in there. Kisame told him so. And Jackal didn’t want to risk Mard Geer not being successful in trying to make an heir again. It always hurt him so much, when he tried so hard and no woman ever gave him a baby.

He bit his lower lip, careful not to bite too hard with his sharp teeth, and lifted a hand to the metal plate that covered the right half of his face. The metal plate he kept hidden under his hair so no one would have to see how much he’d failed Mard Geer in the Underworld’s war. The metal plate that replaced a lot of his skull.

_ “Mard, yes!” _

Jackal hunched his shoulders and pulled his feet up onto the couch. Everyone thought he didn’t remember being a general. They thought he forgot that he’d promised to always serve Mard Geer, since before the war against the Emperor, because Mard Geer found him in the Outlands and offered to let Jackal follow him. He’d been saving Jackal’s life over and over again. But Jackal  _ did _ remember being a general, fighting by Mard Geer’s side, using his soot black hands to cause explosions, and laughing, cackling,  _ murdering _ demons left and right.

Jackal remembered it all, but it felt like it wasn’t him, that it was someone else who’d been in his body, and that he was  _ himself _ now and not that General Jackal who was so strong and fearsome.

_ “Oh, fuck… Mard!” _

Jackal’s eyes clenched as he remembered how Mard Geer had looked, hovering over him with the strong smell of sulphur in the air, with smoke clouding the sky and fires burning everywhere. He remembered how  _ scared _ Mard Geer had been, how he’d  _ cried _ and  _ smiled _ when Jackal had forced himself to smile up at him, when he’d whispered,  _ “You’re okay,” _ up at Mard Geer, because he’d pushed Mard Geer out of the way, he’d  _ saved _ him for a change!

More glass shattered in the bedroom, and Jackal flinched and whimpered. He tried to ignore it, instead remembering how, the next time he’d woken up, the war was over, and Mard Geer was holding his hand and smiling down at his bandaged face.  _ “You are awake, Jackal,” _ Mard Geer had said, sounding so relieved, Jackal had nearly cried as well.  _ “Thank the Nine Hells…” _

He’d been so relieved, so  _ happy _ ! All Jackal wanted, even though he wasn’t able to be a fighter for Mard Geer anymore… all he wanted was to make his king smile. That was why he let people believe he was Mard Geer’s pet now, that he was dumber than he really was. He knew he wasn’t smart before, not like Mard Geer or Freed or Silver, but he was less smart now. Still, Jackal was important in Mard Geer’s life. He was the one Mard Geer trusted, kept by his side. Every time he came to an event and the woman didn’t end up pregnant, he went down to the ballroom to mingle with the other unsuccessful women, to make them feel special for a little while. And then, he would come back up to the room, and pull Jackal into the bed.

That was when Jackal could shine. Mard Geer wanted a baby, and he’d promised that Jackal could be its protector. But when it didn’t work, Jackal got to hold Mard Geer, and pet  _ his _ hair, and comfort the king in a way no one else ever could.

Mard Geer’s roar shook the door against its jamb, and Jackal’s head shot up to stare over at the barrier keeping him from his king. Mard Geer never sounded like that during a mating event before. He sounded like the vicious demon from Jackal’s distant memories. He smiled and lowered his head again, pulling a throw pillow against his chest. He rested his metal-covered cheek against the pillow and clamped his eyes shut.

“Let it work,” he whispered. Silver’s son, Gray, had told him that if you speak wishes out loud, the universe knows they’re there, and maybe it’ll make your wish come true. “Make his wish come true. Please… Let it work this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, for reals. One more chapter after this one. There was so much I plotted out, and then I had to cut it because it would have turned this into a whole novel. I've set those notes to the side, and left a few small hints here and there in this story of what those larger plot points could turn into.


	4. Chapter 4

Jackal knelt by the bedroom door as the sun broke past the horizon, chewing on his lips as he heard Mard Geer’s growling growing more animalistic, how the woman with him howled in what Jackal hoped was pleasure. She sure sounded happy if the way she kept screeching  _ yes, yes, yes _ was any clue. Jackal was sure all the windows in the room were broken. There wasn’t any more glass shattering, at least. 

He couldn’t go in there. Kisame told him he wasn’t allowed in the bedroom until Porlyusica told him that he was allowed to see Mard Geer. Except, what if Mard Geer got off the bed and walked around on the polished wooden floor, and he stepped on the glass? It wouldn’t hurt him, probably, but it would be uncomfortable. And if the woman with him was a human, like Kisame and Suigetsu had said, then that meant her feet  _ could _ get hurt. And if she ended up carrying Mard Geer’s baby, then that meant Jackal had to keep her safe so the baby would be safe. That was the most important thing.

He crept away from the door and into the kitchen, peeked under the sink, and grinned when he saw a small brush and dustpan. Mard Geer always got this room, and Jackal had broken things on accident enough times here that the staff always kept it for him to clean up. He grabbed them quickly, leaving the cabinet open as he dashed back to the bedroom door. The woman’s voice keened higher, higher still, and then her cries were suddenly muffled. But Jackal could still hear them moving, skin slapping together.

Slowly, he turned the doorknob, waited for it to hit the stopper so the door wouldn’t make any noise. He pushed the door open slowly, keeping low to the floor so they wouldn’t notice him. Jackal peeked at the bed, his eye widening when he saw Mard kneeling on the bed, snarling down at a blonde woman’s sweat-slicked back.

“So vocal now,” Mard Geer groaned. “Lucy, let me hear everything!”

Jackal was frozen as she pushed herself up, watching with rapt attention as she allowed Mard Geer’s arms to wrap around her waist and drag her up against his chest. The moment Mard Geer’s arm slithered up her stomach and between her luscious, bouncing breasts, Jackal’s head lowered again. He was glad he’d practiced walking silently as he stayed flush against the wall and moved toward the large glass shards on the floor.

She didn’t say anything but the king’s name, well… only part of his name, actually. But Jackal did his best to ignore the sounds they made while he picked up the biggest pieces and set them in the dustpan. He used the brush to sweep up the smaller pieces he couldn’t grab as quietly as possible. They were louder, so it wasn’t too hard.

The only problem was that there was too much glass and not enough dustpan. Once full, he crept out of the room and dumped the glass in the trash, then went back in.

Two more times, he succeeded in staying hidden.

On his last trip out, Mard Geer’s fearsome roar rattling the dishes out in the kitchen startled Jackal. He dropped the dustpan and froze as the glass shards crashed to the floor.

They breathed heavily, and when Jackal glanced over, he found Mard Geer had collapsed on top of the blonde woman who let out soft, quivering whimpers. Mard Geer nibbled on her shoulder and hummed low in his throat, one hand massaging up her waist to the outside of her breast. Her head turned, and Jackal’s breath caught when she smiled at the king.

She was beautiful. So beautiful, he had to look away before his chest started to hurt. Jackal busied himself with sweeping up the remnants. His ears lowered when he heard her barely audible gasp.

“Jackal,” Mard Geer said, his voice so flat that Jackal wanted to crawl under the couch and hide. “What are you doing in here?”

Jackal’s shoulders hunched and he paused in sweeping. “I-I heard the glass breaking,” he said. “I got worried.”

“M-Mard, who--” the woman began.

“I didn’t want you to step in it and get hurt,” he said, sweeping up the last shards. He brushed the same spot a couple more times to make sure he didn’t miss anything. “I’m sorry, Mard Geer.”

“You are not a bad boy,” Mard sighed. He sounded so tired, but Jackal still grinned. His tail wagged to show his happiness, but he didn’t look at the bed. It wouldn’t be right. Mard Geer was supposed to be the one seeing that woman naked, not Jackal. “Thank you for protecting me.”

He understood. Mard Geer always understood. Even when Jackal didn’t know how to get the right words out, when he was stuck inside his head and hating that the words he knew wouldn’t make his lips move to tell Mard Geer what was wrong… Mard Geer always understood. Jackal wasn’t trying to be bad. He knew that Kisame had said he couldn’t come into the room, but he’d wanted to protect Mard Geer, just like he’d promised.

Jackal stood, kept his head lowered, and moved to leave the room and close the door behind him so they could have privacy. Porlyusica would be there soon. She always showed up around dawn, unless Jackal popped his head out of the suit to tell her that Mard Geer wasn’t finished. Sometimes, he did this for another hour after sunrise, but that was usually only with half-demonesses. Jackal guessed they could handle more time with him. Maybe humans couldn’t, so he only had so much time to try and get a baby in them.

“Wait,” Mard Geer said. Jackal froze in an instant. “Turn around, Jackal.” He did just what Mard Geer asked of him, then raised his head when he was told to do it. He stared at them on the bed through his lashes, unable to lift his head all the way. Not right then. It didn’t feel right, seeing this woman pinned on her stomach beneath his king. “Lucy, this is Jackal, my most precious companion.”

His ears flattened against his head and slowly met her wide honey gazy. She was confused as she looked at him, but she was so beautifully flushed in her cheeks, her lips were so plump… Jackal smiled with a shy twitch at the corners of his mouth. “Hi,” he whispered.

“H-Hi,” she squeaked. Mard Geer chuckled as he shifted and his lips brushed across her cheek.

“There is no reason to fear him,” he said. “As long as I am happy, Jackal is happy.”

Jackal nodded, still looking at her. His smile widened, and he breathed in to speak. Then he stopped. That smell. He knew that smell. He  _ knew _ it so well! “You’ll make beautiful babies,” he breathed, his smile growing wider than before. His hands shook as he gripped the brush and dustpan tighter, gasping when they accidentally exploded in his grasp.

Before Mard Geer could scold him, Jackal spun around and ran at full speed out of the suite. Before he could reach the elevator, the phone rang on a small table just inside the suite. He answered it right away, snarling when he heard from the concierge desk that Porlyusica had yet to arrive, if Mard Geer needed more time. She always saw him first, after all. Jackal slammed the phone down and went to the elevator. It took too long. Even when he hit the buttons over and over and over again. When it finally dinged and the doors opened, he pushed the number 1 repeatedly to make the doors close faster, to make the machine move faster. To force this thing to get him to the first floor as quickly as possible.

By the time he reached the main floor, Jackal was ready to tear his way through the metal cage around himself and blow up part of the hotel. He looked around quickly for someone who could help. Someone he could trust with the information he had. He needed Porlyusica.

“Jackal, get kicked out?” Suigetsu laughed, nodding to Kisame who now stood by the entryway.

Kisame. Kisame could help. Kisame knew lots of secrets. It was his job to keep secrets for the king. Him and those other demons that worked with him. They kept so many secrets that Jackal always forgot about - and that was why Jackal was allowed to be around all the time, because he couldn’t remember them. But Kisame was trustworthy!

Jackal’s claws scraped along the marble floor as he ran to Kisame. He lost his balance twice, catching himself just barely with his hands and pushing faster until he barreled into Kisame’s broad chest.

“Whoa, what’s wrong?” Kisame asked, placing his large, cold, blue hands on Jackal’s shoulders.

“Need the doctor,” he said quickly. “The king. Need her.”

“What happened?” Suigetsu spat.

“Th-The doctor,” Jackal said again, more urgently this time. “I smelled it. I  _ smelled _ it, Kisame!”

“What are you talking about?” Kisame asked. He nodded toward the elevator, and Jackal heard Suigetsu hold the door open.

Jackal didn’t know the right words anymore. But he smiled and he cried, even when Kisame shook him and yelled at him to spit it out already. “Doctor,” he said through his tears. “I-I smelled it!”

“Smelled what?!” Suigetsu bellowed.

Jackal’s lips quivered as his tears came more forcefully, but he grabbed Kisame’s pressed dress shirt and ignored the smell of burning fabric while his brain forced his mouth to work. His smile was impossibly wide as he stuttered, “The k-king’s baby!”

* * *

Lucy sat on the bed wearing nothing more than a robe Mard had found for her, with him sitting beside her in a matching robe. He’d held her hand while Porlyusica brought out a black pen and pricked Lucy’s finger. And they’d both waited with bated breath while the pink-haired doctor read the results on a screen.

“I should mention,” Mard said, squeezing Lucy’s hand slightly. Did he need comfort? Was he trying to comfort  _ her _ ? “The shot was not administered.”

Porlyusica’s lips pursed and her eyes narrowed at him. “Of course it wasn’t,” she sighed, putting the black pen in her pocket. “That explains why this says it’s negative.”

“N-Negative?” Lucy whispered. “So, I’m not…”

Porlyusica shook her head and reached down to the tie on Lucy’s robe. “Honestly,” she muttered under her breath, “why I even bother is beyond me. Can’t be bothered to follow simple instructions.”

Lucy squeaked as her robe was pulled open to bare her breasts and stomach to the doctor. “Um…” She glanced over to the open bedroom door, gasping when she saw Jackal staring into the room, right at her, smiling with his sharp teeth as though he was going to devour her soul. “D-Doctor--”

Porlyusica’s hand rested just below Lucy’s navel, and the breath died in her throat when she saw a soft green glow surround the doctor’s wrinkled fingers. “Relax, child,” she said softly. “I’m just checking the way we used to, since  _ someone _ didn’t do what he was supposed to do.”

“If Jackal is correct, then it will not matter,” Mard said.

Lucy looked at Jackal again, her jaw dropping when his ears perked up and he walked away from the doorway. She didn’t know why he’d stayed out in the living area instead of coming into the room. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be in there?

“I suppose that’s true,” Porlyusica said. She pulled her hand away, leaving Lucy’s robe open as she stood to her full height and set her attention on Mard. “Well, your dog’s nose is a keen one. I’ll give your staff a list, as agreed. Congratulations, my king, she’s carrying your child.”

Lucy’s attention shifted back to Porlyusica in time to see her bow at the waist and leave the room. When she looked at Mard, he was wide-eyed, still staring at the space that had once held the doctor. “Did she say…”

“She did,” he breathed. “You are…” His expression was a mixture of horror and sadness and joy. “You are pregnant.”

That was apparently all he was going to say on the matter, because as she stared at him for another couple minutes, he stayed silent. She didn’t see him blink once. A soft whine from the other room drew her attention back to the door where she found Jackal staring at them with what she could only call the most precious puppy pout she’d ever seen. She nudged Mard none-too-lightly with her elbow while quickly pulling her robe closed. “Why is he standing there?” she hissed.

Mard blinked rapidly and turned to the door, his thin brows furrowing slightly. “What are you doing?”

“She didn’t say I could come in,” Jackal said. He very nearly sounded like he was whining, even with his voice such a rich baritone. “I have to wait for Porlyusica to tell me to come in, but she didn’t.” Lucy watched as his one visible eye gleamed with pride a moment later. “But I got breakfast.”

Mard sighed softly through his nose. “Come in, Jackal.”

In an instant, Jackal disappeared past Lucy’s line of sight into the living area, then reappeared pushing a three-tiered silver cart with shining black shelves and two large covered dishes on the top shelf. The cart stopped in front of her and Mard, and Jackal removed the stainless steel covers on both dishes to reveal a piping hot breakfast spread. “Congratulations, Lucy,” he said, grinning down at her.

“Did you not get yourself breakfast?” Mard asked. She stared at the two plates, then looked up at Jackal just in time to see a soft blush on his one visible cheek while he stared at the ground.

“She’s pregnant,” he said, putting the lids on the second shelf of the cart. “She can have mine. I-I’ll eat later.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Lucy said quickly. Was this a normal thing for them, then? Had the past mating events resulted in the women getting dressed right away and leaving, and then Jackal and Mard ate breakfast together? 

“I want to,” Jackal said quickly, looking into her eyes again. As she watched him, she realized his eye was a brilliant golden color. She’d never seen a demon like him before. His little black canine nose and mostly human lips threw her off slightly. He had an intense aura about him, something that warned the most primal part of her brain to beware. But looking at him, he didn’t seem like someone she should be wary of. “I-I can’t do much anymore, now that I’m hurt and my head doesn’t always work right. And I-I can’t fight like I used to, but…”

What did he mean by that? He didn’t look hurt to her. If anything, he seemed like a sweetheart. He’d been so careful before, so respectful to Mard. And here he was, offering to let her eat his food all because she was pregnant.

“Mard Geer said that if he ever had a baby, I’d be its protector. So…” That was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard. Jackal sounded so proud, so much like a child bragging to an adult about how responsible he was. “So you eat. You’ve gotta keep the baby healthy, so I can protect it. And I don’t have to eat right away. I’ve gone a long time without food before, and I ate yesterday, so I’m okay.”

“Still,” she said, her brows drawing together. She didn’t want him watching them eating. It didn’t sit right with her, that he would give up his meal for her completely. She wasn’t all that hungry right then anyway. If anything, all she wanted to do was get a shower and go to sleep for a few days. Mard had put her body through hell over the course of the night. She’d never known she could scream so loudly, or that her body could bend in the ways he’d moved her. And she’d definitely never realized that the sounds  _ he _ made would affect her so much. 

Food wasn’t really on her priority list, even if she’d missed dinner the night before.

“Come here,” Mard chuckled. Lucy was shocked by how quickly Jackal bounded around the cart and knelt on the floor at Mard’s feet. She was even more shocked at seeing Mard’s hand reaching out - he’d licked those fingers clean not even an hour ago when he’d fingered her after Lucy had missed out on an orgasm and he’d been recuperating - to pet Jackal’s golden hair. “You will be a fine protector, Jackal,” he said gently. “Many fought by my side, but I would not entrust the safety of my heir to just any general. Only you.”

Lucy was still having a hard time even processing the fact that she was pregnant in the first place, let alone that Jackal had been the one to  _ smell _ her pregnancy and called Porlyusica to come verify it. Less than 12 hours ago, she’d lost her virginity. Less than one hour ago, Mard had still been fucking her. That she was even conscious right then was a miracle, as far as she was concerned. But then as she looked at the pure devotion in Jackal’s golden gaze, and took in how tenderly Mard touched his hair… she wondered just what sort of  _ companion _ Jackal really was to the king.

Then, Jackal glanced her way for only a moment, and looked almost pleadingly up at Mard. Were they somehow communicating with each other?

“Can I…?” Jackal breathed, grinning again when Mard nodded. She sat there, unsure of just what was happening as Jackal shifted closer to her leg. He stayed on the floor. Mard gently guided her hand to rest on top of Jackal’s head, to pet him like a dog. As she touched the soft golden strands of his hair, Lucy couldn’t help but smile just a little bit. He really was like a dog. Sure, she’d thought that the demons who acted as animalistic as this hadn’t come to Earthland, maybe there were a few the nobles kept as pets.

It felt strange, though, petting someone who was mostly human in appearance. Her fingers carded through his hair in the back, then shifted to his bangs to push his hair away from his eyes. 

She barely felt the cool touch of metal beneath her fingers before he drew back and roughly pulled his hair over his face again.

“Not there,” he said.

“What was that?” she asked, looking from Jackal’s downcast gaze to Mard.

“Where I got hurt,” Jackal muttered, his ears laying flat against his head again. Between those and his tail, Lucy had a feeling it was pretty easy to tell how he felt.

She slowly reached for him again, but curved her hand under his chin and lifted his head. He looked so sad, she nearly dropped the subject. What did he mean by “got hurt?” Except, Mard reached forward and pushed the hair from Jackal’s face to show her a metal plate grafted into his flesh, reaching from his hairline, over his left eye and down onto his cheek. The metal seemed worn and slightly dented from a fine hammer, as though it had been crafted with little care over how well the shape matched Jackal’s bone structure in his cheek and the ridge of his brow.

“Jackal was one of my generals in the war,” Mard said. She didn’t miss how his thumb brushed along the seam between Jackal’s skin and the metal plate. “The Emperor sent a surprise attack at me from behind, and Jackal pushed me out of the way, injuring himself in the process.”

“It hit my face,” Jackal said sadly.

“It would have killed me,” Mard added. “And it very nearly killed him, even with the glancing blow he received.” Lucy’s mouth hung open in shock, even as Mard smirked at her. “He is my most loyal subject.”

Well, she at least understood that part of their relationship, but… Mard really didn’t seem like the  _ touchy _ type, except when he’d had her in bed. Of course, she didn’t know him very well - and she definitely didn’t know how he acted with those he was friends with - but the tenderness he showed to Jackal bordered on something more than platonic. They very nearly seemed like lovers. She shook her head free of that sudden train of thought - it didn’t matter what Mard did with Jackal, after all, and it wasn’t her place to judge - and instead looked at Jackal again. “So, you got hurt saving him?” she asked.

Jackal nodded with a sad little turn to his lips. “It was worth it. Mard Geer wanted to save everyone in the Underworld from the Emperor, and if I’d died to protect him so he could make it happen, then I would’ve died happy.”

She had no words for the level of devotion Jackal showed for his king. It was heartwarming, and struck something deeper inside of her. Something she couldn’t name, that moved her in a way she hadn’t known possible. “Well, considering everything he’s done for us in Earthland as well, I’m very glad you saved his life,” she whispered. “I might never have been born if he hadn’t saved us humans, too.”

The way Jackal leaned his face against her hand had her wondering what type of demon he really was. She’d thought maybe he was more of a canine with his mannerisms and his instant obedience, but his tail and ears moved like a feline.

“Oh, will she stay?” Jackal asked, grinning up at Mard. “She’s gonna have your baby, so she should stay, right?”

“Stay?” Lucy asked, frowning at Mard. As soon as she asked, she understood what Jackal meant. She was pregnant, which meant Mard would most likely offer her a place to stay, with him, so she could be properly taken care of during the pregnancy. And for the first year after the birth, if everything went smoothly. She winced, thinking back to her last conversation with her parents. “That’s… probably for the best,” she said. 

She knew it was almost an unspoken rule with mating events that pregnant matches would stay with the demon who’d impregnated them, especially since demonesses now had more autonomy in their relationships - they couldn’t be surprised with a random pregnant woman barging into their home, learning after the fact that their chosen mate had decided to fuck someone else to have a baby - but it was still a choice for the male partner to offer.

“Oh?” Mard asked.

Lucy chose that moment to stare at the robe covering her flat stomach. “My parents kinda… kicked me out last night.”

“Why?” Mard growled.

She jumped when she heard Jackal’s own growl joining in. “They didn’t want me to come to the event,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I guess they assumed I’d eventually decide that I agreed with them, but… My dad said that if I left, I couldn’t go back home.”

“I see,” said Mard. “And if you had left the hotel last night after our conversation?”

“He wouldn’t have gone back on what he said, even if I bailed before doing anything,” she said, shrugging in defeat. She hadn’t thought much about what she would do this morning if she wasn’t pregnant. “I probably would’ve called up Natsu to crash on his couch, though, since he’s my best friend.”

“Your family would leave you homeless and destitute over your choice to participate in the mating event?” Mard asked. She could feel the tension rising in the air well before Jackal huddled up by her leg, cowering from the suddenly deadly aura surrounding Mard. She couldn’t see it, but she felt an incomprehensible weight pressing down on her chest and shoulders. “Jackal, eat with Lucy.”

“O-Okay,” he squeaked. Mard stood from the bed in one fluid motion and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. “Oh, fuck, he’s  _ pissed _ .”

“Did I say something wrong?” she asked, looking down at the demon who uncurled himself from the floor and sat in Mard’s vacated spot beside her. Jackal pulled the cart closer and held his hands several inches over their now-cold food. His palms glowed red for a moment, and when he pulled them away, the skin returning to that strange black color it had been before, she could see steam rising from the food again.

“Not wrong,” Jackal said. He picked up a fork and stabbed a sausage link, shoving the whole thing in his mouth. “But the mating event is really important, and if people do that to women that want to attend, it’s bad.”

“I guess it does set a bad precedent,” she mused. Jackal held his fork in front of her lips with a moderate helping of scrambled eggs.

“Eat,” he said. “You’ve gotta feed the baby.”

She let out a quiet laugh and parted her lips, then laughed again when Jackal pushed the fork into her mouth with a look of pure concentration on his face. At the first bite, she hummed in delight. It was delicious, even reheated. 

“So, you’ll come stay at the castle?” Jackal asked. He took another huge bite of food, then cut a sausage link in half with the side of his fork and held one piece up to her lips while she kept chewing her eggs.

She nodded, swallowed the eggs. “I will,” she said, grinning when he shook the fork. “Will you be there to help me get used to everything?”

Jackal smiled when she ate the sausage, then his face fell and his grip tightened on the fork. “If that’s okay… Silver says I’m too clingy.”

He stabbed some food on his plate, and Lucy finally lifted her own fork instead of having Jackal feed her. He seemed so sad all of a sudden. She wasn’t really sure who Silver was, but it sounded like he gave Jackal a hard time. And considering the demon beside her had taken some crazy demonic hit to the skull that she was sure had given him some sort of brain damage, that was pretty fucked up to say.

“Hey, Jackal?”

“Hm…”

“I hope this isn’t rude to ask, but are you a cannis-type demon?” Maybe if she took his mind off of Silver saying that to him, then they could have a decent breakfast. And, if she was going to be around Jackal for next nearly two years, then it would be good to know more about him.

“I guess you could call it that.” His head lowered further and he muttered,“Most people just call me Mard’s  _ dog _ , though…”

She paused in choosing what to eat from her plate to look over at his lowered ears and the slump to his shoulders. “You must not like that very much.”

Before he could shake his head, she was already reaching out to hold his hand. “I hate it,” he said. “I know I can’t do the things I used to. I can’t fight by Mard Geer’s side anymore. And I was never all that smart to begin with. But I’m not useless. I’m still good for stuff. More than just following him around.”

She gently squeezed his hand and ignored how his other hand melted the fork into a misshapen blob of metal. “Well, Mard called you his companion,” she said. “It seems like you’re really important to him.”

“He saved my life,” Jackal said, slowly meeting her gaze. “And before the war, I swore I’d always serve him. He…” Jackal leaned forward to look out the bedroom door, probably to make sure Mard didn’t hear him as he leaned in to whisper, “He’s been alone for so long. Everyone needs love so… when he’s feeling alone, I’m there for him. When he’s sad, he lets me touch his hair.”

“That’s really sweet,” she said, smiling softly.

“It bothers me when someone calls me his dog, but it doesn’t, too. Because when he’s lonely, and still doesn’t want anyone to bother him, I get to be there to keep him company. Just like he’s there to make me feel better when I get upset over the way I am now.”

“And now you also get to be a protector for his baby, right?” she asked. He barely smiled. “And you’ll be my protector too while I’m carrying the baby?”

His smile widened further at that. “As long as you’re around,” he said. “Because you’re the reason he gets to have a baby. He’s wanted one for a long time.”

“How come?” she laughed.

“I’m not supposed to talk about that,” he chuckled. “He said it’s a secret.”

“Well, then I don’t care if this Silver person says you’re  _ too clingy _ ,” she giggled. “I bet we’ll be great friends.”

“Y-You do?” Lucy squeaked when Jackal’s arms wound around her waist and barely squeezed as he hugged her, burying the metal plate on his head against her chest. She looked up when Mard walked back into the room, the robe he’d been wearing having been replaced by a crisp black suit with barely visible silver pinstripes.

“Am I interrupting?” Mard asked.

Her arm wrapped around Jackal’s shoulders before he could pull away. “L-Lucy said it’s okay to be clingy like Silver said I am,” he said.

“Well, if you’re gonna be my protector too, then why not?” She didn’t even mind that Jackal nuzzled the side of her breast.

“I see,” Mard said. Slowly, the tension in his shoulders melted away. “While I am sure you would prefer resting, you should get dressed.”

She blinked. “Get dressed?” She looked at her clothing strewn across the room. Her bra and blouse on the floor. Her torn pants and underwear in a pile. 

“He always goes down to the ballroom to make a speech to the women that didn’t get pregnant,” Jackal said.

“I, uh… Can’t?”

Mard followed her line of sight, and when she looked at him again, she found a slight flush to his cheeks. “Ah. I will have a dress brought up for you. Jackal, escort her downstairs after you both finish eating.”

He walked further into the room, rested his hand on Jackal’s head, then leaned down to press a tender kiss to Lucy’s hair. When she looked up to meet his mesmerizing gaze, she gasped as his lips covered hers in a tender caress.

“Care for the child,” he breathed against her lips before standing to his full height and leaving the suite entirely.

* * *

Mard Geer hated this Morning After reception that was held at every event. He understood the importance, of course. These women had been willing to lay with a demon for a night - not always an easy task, he knew - and their efforts hadn’t been rewarded in anything more than a night of pleasure. For some, he was sure that was enough. But for others, the news of a negative test was devastating.

And, as he’d learned, there were women who put their livelihood on the line to attend. Those who were willing to give up everything to bring a demonic child into the world. His sweet, angelic Lucy was one of them. Knowing that she had been forced to endure that sickened him. Knowing that her own family had been willing to let her live on the streets and beg for her meals made him hate that he was bound to never harm humans while serving as king.

Still, after making a few calls to Freed and Silver, he was sure this issue would be remedied soon.

Mard Geer walked through the ballroom, pausing at each table to personally thank the women who quietly ate their breakfast. When this had started 60 years ago, he’d very nearly offered to pay them when they failed - back in those days, there were no guarantees that the demons bedding them would adhere to the guidelines and not also injure the human women - but had thought better of it. Money might be a good motivator, but greed was a poor trait in humans and demons alike.

He was surprised to find Mira Jane sitting at the table with other Class A women, but she quickly dissuaded any possible misunderstanding. She was pregnant with Laxus’ child - which he congratulated her for - but wanted to be with the women who weren’t so lucky. She had gone through this several times already, and wanted to offer them support from a place of understanding.

“I haven’t seen Lucy, though,” she said, frowning as she looked toward the doors leading from the foyer. “She didn’t leave last night, did sh - Oh, there she is!” Mira waved her arm wildly to Lucy, and Mard Geer turned to find Jackal’s arm linked with hers as he led her through the ballroom. “Who’s that with her? I’ve never seen him before.”

“He doesn’t look like a noble,” someone whispered.

“Too animalistic,” another murmured.

“Was she with  _ him _ ?”

“Oh my god, he’s got a  _ tail _ .”

The whispers about Jackal’s appearance died down as they got closer. Or maybe Mard Geer stopped hearing them because of the way Lucy looked as she came closer. The lush orchid-colored dress he’d procured for her complemented her flushed cheeks. The low v-cut neckline and cinched band beneath those luscious breasts he’d spent hours teasing, how the silk of her skirt flowed and billowed while she walked, made his mouth water. He wanted her again, right there in the ballroom. The way her eyes honed in on him, how her thoughts came to a crashing halt from the neverending stream of anxiety he’d heard before, left him breathless. Just as breathless as her, he could tell.

Jackal led Lucy right to him, then patted her arm and let her go. Mard Geer nearly lost control of himself when Lucy nibbled her lower lip with indecision on how to greet him.

_ ‘Should I smile? How formal should I be? Do I bow? Do I curtsy? I was just screaming my face off while he fucked the brains right out of me not that long ago, so how am I supposed to act now? Does anyone know I was with him? Does me being here make it seem like I’m not pregnant? Oh my god, looking at him now, I can’t believe I lost my virginity to him! His eyes see right into my soul. Okay, don’t get ahead of yourself, Lucy. It was one night, and sure, you’re gonna have his baby, but that doesn’t mean anything more than exactly what it was. You don’t--’ _

Mard Geer took her hand in his, and pulled her into his chest, earning a round of gasps from the women around them. “You ate well?” he asked.

“I-I did,” she said. “Jackal made sure I finished every bite.”

“Wonderful. Whatever you need is yours.” He almost laughed at the deeper flush crossing her cheeks. “Anything for the woman carrying my child.”

Mira Jane squealed at such an unholy decibel, Mard Geer very nearly murdered her right then. He thought better of it when he threw caution to the wind, and lowered his head to bring his lips to Lucy’s. The women in the ballroom cooed and applauded as he deepened the kiss, just as Lucy had so many times the night before.

When he drew back, she gazed up at him with half-lidded eyes that begged him to take her back up to the suite almost as loudly as her thoughts did. “You may tire of hearing me say it as the months progress,” he whispered. “But, thank you.”

“For what?”

“For giving me what I desire most.”

“Saying you’re welcome feels kinda weird,” she laughed. “But, you’re welcome anyway.”

Mard Geer shook his head at that. Yes, he wanted a child to raise as the heir to his thrones - both in Earthland and the Underworld - but there was something more that he ached for. He knew that the woman who finally gave him a child would be the one to take away his loneliness in a way Jackal never could. He had no issue thanking her preemptively for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I very nearly made the pregnancy test a false negative that took another 5k to finally get around to them finding out Lucy's pregnant. However... I may end up adding more as an epilogue of Lucy's adventures in pregnancy. This story's complete for now.


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